The Law of the Jungle
by Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Gibbs knew from the start that his team would kill him. (Urban fantasy AU in which magic is decidedly not nice, but that doesn't mean it isn't loyal.)
1. Gibbs: The Law of the Jungle

_"This is the law of the jungle/_ _As old and as true as the sky./_ _The wolf who keeps it may prosper;/_ _The wolf who breaks it must die."_

 _\- Rudyard Kipling._

* * *

Someday, his team would kill him. Gibbs knew that from the day he came back from Baltimore with a half-fey who'd inherited his father's wolf curse.

Morrow looked up from the personnel file. "Years of you chewing through my best agents and _this_ is what you bring me?"

Gibbs kept on his best blank look. "NCIS has a non-discrimination policy." Of course, that was more of a formality for the Accords than an actual practice of recruiting nonhumans, but Morrow wouldn't be able to deny the policy.

Morrow didn't look impressed. "So you bring back a half-feral wolf."

"File says the fey side helps him control the shift," Gibbs said mildly.

"And how's he going to get along with your other pet monster?"

 _"Abby,"_ Gibbs said in a dangerous growl, "gets along with DiNozzo just fine." Admittedly, the first meeting had been tense, especially when DiNozzo had sniffed out the blood hiding in her Caff-POW cup, but once instinct got out of the way, Abby hadn't been able to resist fussing over the injured soon to be agent, and Tony was too contact starved to give more than one confused protest.

"And when he finds a pack and gets divided loyalties?"

Gibbs thought of the way DiNozzo was always a step behind him, of the way he ducked his head every time he feared he'd crossed a line. "Not a problem." He didn't know if that was how real wolves behaved, but he'd seen enough werewolf packs to know what that meant.

"Gibbs," Morrow said slowly, "you know what that means."

Gibbs did. The Accords were very clear on that. "You saying I'm weak, Director?"

Morrow scowled, but Gibbs could see him giving in. "You'll tell me when I need to transfer him."

It wasn't a question, so Gibbs didn't answer. He just grunted an acknowledgement of the statement and left.

Someday, Gibbs would get too old or too injured and DiNozzo would decide it was time for a new leader of the pack. Someday, Abby would get too thirsty or Gibbs would be bleeding too freely.

In the meantime, there were human criminals to arrest and supernatural criminals to be cornered into a challenge.

If his team killed him, they killed him. Gibbs didn't much care.

* * *

"A banshee, Boss? Really?"

Gibbs just kept sanding the boat. "Problem, DiNozzo?"

Tony held up his hands in quick surrender. "Banshees are fine. A little shrill, maybe, and kind of frustrating with the whole 'refusal to thwart destiny save once' thing, and I've got to tell you they smell like _death_ , but - "

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

" - but Kate and I will work it out, I'm sure," he said hastily.

"You've still got seniority," Gibbs reminded him.

Tony relaxed. "That's true. And Abby likes her, so she can't be all bad." He stretched and got too his feet. "Night, Boss." He wobbled a bit as he climbed the stairs.

"Guest room," Gibbs ordered without looking up.

"Yes, Boss."

* * *

Morrow was wearing that look again. "I'd hoped it was a good sign you'd chosen Agent Todd."

Translation: He'd thought it was a good thing Gibbs had chosen at least one team member that wasn't likely to kill him. Let him die, yes, but not kill him.

"McGee's human," Gibbs said. "Just like you requested."

"He's human," Morrow agreed. "A human _wizard_."

"An apprentice wizard," Gibbs corrected. "I'll make sure he doesn't dive too deep." Wizards that used too much magic had a bad tendency to lose bits of themselves and get a bit . . . Homicidal. Gibbs figured he'd get McGee to focus on the tech side of things and just use the magic to ease things along. "And the others are bonding over having a new teammate." Well, uniting against him. Tom-a-to, to-mah-to.

Morrow sighed. "Tell me you know what you're doing."

"Always do," Gibbs assured him.

McGee might kill him one day, but in the meantime, he was useful.

* * *

Hand to hand combat was a critical skill at NCIS. They might not be able to arrest a nonhuman, but the Accords allowed humans offended by things like fey kidnappings or trolls eating off duty sailors to force their offenders into a Challenge.

Unfortunately, their opponent got to pick the weaponry, and most of the magic touched preferred not to let humans make up for their weaknesses with high tech weaponry. Thus, hand to hand and archaic weapons.

Since McGee's idea of exercise was carrying a stack of spell books, Gibbs wasn't surprised to see Kate slamming him into the mat.

Tony slipped into the ring with fey grace. "Ready?"

In answer, Gibbs lunged forward, fist driving towards Tony's abdomen.

Tony sprang back. His form shuddered into a large wolf with dagger like fangs and shadows clinging to his coat.

In comparison, Gibbs looked almost frail. Weak. _Human_.

The match ended with Gibbs' arm pressed against Tony's neck.

DiNozzo shifted back, eyes wide with admiration. "Good match, Boss."

"You're improving," Gibbs allowed.

Someday, he'd fail to win, and it wouldn't be DiNozzo's arm on his neck, it would be his teeth ripping through it.

But not today. Today, DiNozzo glowed at the compliment, and the team fell in behind him as they went to solve the case.

* * *

Ari Haswari came. He left. He came back.

And Kate started singing Gibbs' death song.

It was a lot harder to pursue the case when he was trying to manage an overprotective werewolf, a panicking vampire, and an awkward wizard more accustomed to constructs than people and who was suddenly very interested in protection charms.

Kate handed him a bulletproof vest.

"Thought you couldn't interfere."

"This isn't interference. You'll know when I'm interfering."

"You could still die from a headshot," McGee said helpfully.

Tony growled. McGee gulped.

* * *

Banshees can only interfere once. Only one thing counts as interference, because only one thing works.

Ari fired a silver bullet.

Kate dove in front of it.

Banshees can only interfere once.

* * *

Zina was human. One hundred percent human.

She was, after all, from a long line of hunters. Gibbs wouldn't have expected anything else.

She respected Gibbs and tolerated McGee, but she kept a hand on her knives near Tony and Abby.

"You touch them, you die," Gibbs warned her.

The rest of it - her eagerness to jump straight to a Challenge, the tension that bubbled in the team - he'd manage that, first because Jen demanded it, then because he saw the desperation in Ziva's eyes.

But that first rule still held true.

* * *

Vance looked at the personnel files. "Do you have a death wish?" he demanded.

"I've got the best team in NCIS," Gibbs snapped back.

That was all he had. This job. This team. This - family.

There was a reason Gibbs had revoked his right to be Challenged over if one of his team struck the blow.

"You're too close to the issue. I'm splitting the team up - "

"And putting them where? Who else will take them?"

Vance conceded with poor grace.

* * *

Ziva left. Gibbs recruited Bishop.

Bishop, who was too thin and who ate and ate and _ate_.

"I food associate," she claimed.

"Don't care. No food in the bullpen."

Tony grabbed one of her chips. Her eyes turned black, and she lunged forward, teeth too sharp. Tony growled, suddenly larger.

"Enough," Gibbs growled. Both subsided.

Bishop flushed. "Also, I have, um, special dispensation."

He'd figured. "Bring enough to share." Tony's instincts demanded it, and the smell always dragged McGee out of a magic haze.

Gibbs added being eaten to the list of ways he was likely to die.

* * *

Bishop and McGee brawled on the mats, her deceptive strength against his experience and flickering spells.

Tony slipped into the ring, exactly as youthfully graceful as he'd been ten years before. "I've been looking forward to this. There's a new move I want to try."

Gibbs - older. Stiffer. Human.

It took every trick he knew to win.

"One day," Tony promised, grinning, before running after the departing McGee and Bishop.

Gibbs waited until the door slammed shut.

Then he collapsed to his knees, hunching over his bruised ribs. Ragged breaths burned his throat.

 _One day_ was getting close.

* * *

He could ask for a transfer to a safer team. Take a desk job. Retire, even. With the concerned looks Vance kept shooting him, it wouldn't be hard to get approval.

Then what, though? Everything he had, every _one_ he had, was here.

He wouldn't leave them. Even if they killed him for it.

* * *

Getting shot was never a picnic, but it used to be easier to be stoic about it. Now he didn't dare to take the pain mess for fear they'd cloud his mind, and he couldn't afford to rest. Without those things, his chest continued to ache, and his movements were slow. Ducky's less intrusive concoctions could only do so much.

Never show weakness. That was the most important rule, and he was failing. He cracked down harder on his team, desperately trying to stay in control.

It wasn't the idea of dying that bothered him. It wasn't worry for the team either; Tony would handle the team - or, as DiNozzo thought of it, the pack - well.

What bothered him was the idea of looking one of them in the eyes and seeing nothing but disgust or hunger or thirst. Of knowing that while he needed them, the reverse wasn't true.

Then the next case came in. A captain on the verge of retirement whose throat had been ripped out by a werewolf under his command that he'd been mentoring.

Young. Fit. Fierce. Gibbs looked across the deck at his opponent and felt every minute of his years.

It was his duty as Senior Agent to issue a Challenge on behalf of NCIS. His duty to make the kill. His job.

But he knew in his gut that he couldn't win this fight. NCIS was only allowed one Challenge per offender per crime. If he failed, this would go unavenged.

Because of his stubbornness, it would.

He could practically hear the wheels turning in McGee's mind, the questions bubbling in Bishop's. He could definitely hear the growl slowly building in Tony's throat.

It was the only solution. It was Tony's right to Challenge his place in the pack if he saw weakness. He could take out Gibbs, then move on to the perp, since he would then be the Senior Agent on the scene. If Gibbs didn't fight him, he would still be going strong enough to do it.

Tony stalked forward. The growl became a snarl. "You ungrateful, primitive _dog_." The words were barely comprehensible. "I Challenge you."

The perp backed up, suddenly uncertain. "You can't. You're not - "

Tony's frame was shaking. "Not for NCIS. For the honor of our kind." Tony leaped, shifting in midair.

The fight didn't last long.

Tony shifted back almost sheepishly. "That'll be a load of paperwork."

McGee and Bishop burst into spontaneous applause.

Tony tried to grin, but his eyes were on Gibbs, seeking approval.

Gibbs gave him a rare smile.

* * *

Vance looked down at the paperwork. "Fifteen arrests. Three NCIS challenges. And _twelve_ personal challenges?"

Tony shrugged from his place at the conference table. "I have issues."

McGee had on his best emotionless mask. "They offended me."

"I was hungry," Bishop said through a full mouth.

Vance repressed a shudder and sighed. "And Miss Scuito? You're not even on the team."

"They insulted Gibbs!"

"And Mr. Palmer - "

The ghoul gulped. "They insulted Dr. Mallard. Um. Sir. And it was just one for me."

Vance turned to Gibbs.

Gibbs shrugged. "They get results."

"And the transfer I suggested . . . ?"

"Unnecessary," Gibbs said firmly.

The rest of the team agreed.

* * *

 **A/N: Prompt #15 - Die.**


	2. Tony: The Strength of the Wolf

**A/N: Apparently I'm not done with this one quite yet.**

 **To the guest who left me that lovely prompt: I'm working on that now. It should be up next.**

* * *

 _"For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

The fey needed their monarchs.

That hadn't always been true, as best Tony could tell, but the binding magic was entwined in their very souls now, and there was no getting out of it. Without someone to latch onto, the binding spell would choke the life right out of a fey, assuming it didn't drive them mad first.

Like it had his mother.

Tony was not mad. Tony was half human, and humans had free will and all that jazz.

Of course, his human half was also cursed, and that cursed half kept looking for a pack and was too young to declare itself the leader of said pack so -

So when he left school with its comforting array of authority figures and his dad left him, and took the tiny trace of pack they had with him, then Tony looked in the mirror at his glittering eyes and manic grin full of too many teeth and fought back a hysterical laugh. So when he pulled off some crazy stunt and someone demanded if he was mad, he felt that twisting, binding, whining magic coil a little tighter inside him.

And then he forced a laugh and say, "Not yet."

He needed a purpose. A leader. A group of people to surround himself with so he didn't get lost in the swirls of too loud, too bright, too full of too cold metal that were the cities that he couldn't bear to leave.

He'd thought about joining the military, but while the military took werewolves, they didn't take fey, and they weren't prepared to deal with a half-breed either.

The police were desperate enough for recruits that they didn't care.

Or, well. They didn't care when they recruited him. After a few years though, just when he almost felt like he'd formed a pack, they started remembering some of the nastier werewolf cases they picked up.

Packs imploding. Elderly leaders getting their throats ripped out. Unwanted pups left to die.

The people giving him orders started to get jumpy about that second one.

They didn't kick him out, exactly. They didn't have time. He left before they got the chance.

As soon as the fragile bonds broke, both his curses started twisting, and he didn't need a mirror to know he was running out of time.

* * *

Baltimore was his last chance, and he knew it.

And it almost worked. He had a partner. A fiancée. They weren't wolves - no wolf who could smell the fey on him would take him - but that was alright. They didn't need to be.

It could have been enough. It would have been enough.

Then his partner turned out to be dirty and his fiancée decided she wasn't ready for the commitment, and that was it. Pack gone, hopes crushed, Tony DiNozzo on his own again.

He could have challenged them. He had that right. When he was standing facing Danny, he almost did. The whole world was growing red, and both the wolf and the fey knew only one way to react to betrayal.

He never even got to face Wendy. She just left a note. Apparently she hadn't trusted him enough for a proper goodbye. Apparently she hadn't realized that their connection was still fresh enough that he could have tracked her across the country.

But he didn't. He didn't kill Danny either. He just turned his partner in, said a mental goodbye to Wendy, and settled down to face what he should have known all along.

He was alone. He was always going to be alone. And it was going to kill him.

Tony sank down onto the couch and looked down at his shaking hands. His chest was past the point of uncomfortably tight. It felt like his ribs were being crushed. Every breath felt strangled. The only breathing space he had left were from the few spiderweb thin connections he had remaining, and those weren't nearly enough of a barrier to protect him from the world that was screaming at every one of his senses.

One of those tenuous connections was just outside the door. He listened to the sound of knocking dully for a moment before it started attacking his skull like a jackhammer.

"It's not locked," he called. His voice sounded surprisingly calm.

The sense of connection grew stronger as Gibbs walked in. He nodded a greeting to the older man. He'd enjoyed working with Gibbs. The man was a natural leader, and he hadn't flinched from Tony like most of his superiors had.

Gibbs leaned against the wall. "Heard you had to turn in your partner."

"What, no surprise that he's still breathing?" Tony asked bitterly. He ran a hand through his hair. "Sorry. That wasn't aimed at you."

Gibbs shrugged. "Instincts get to all of us in this job. No matter what we are."

"Men, monsters, all," he said with a biting smile he hoped covered the darkness in his eyes. "What can I do for you, Special Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs shrugged again. "Just came to see how you were doing. I heard another rumor that you quit the force."

"What can I say. Baltimore's lost its charm." He'd had some thought of trying over somewhere else, but that had been before the magic had really gotten its claws in. He was out of time for somewhere else. This conversation with Gibbs was the best he'd felt in a week.

"You ever think about D.C.?"

It was as good a place to die as any, he supposed, but he hadn't really planned to take the trouble of moving - He blinked. "Was that a job offer?"

"Director's been after me to find someone to work with. Thought maybe you'd be interested."

NCIS. He'd never seriously considered anything having to do with the Navy before for reasons anyone who shared his curse would easily understand, but NCIS wasn't the Navy, and surely the risk wasn't that great.

And if this was his connection to Gibbs after their short connection, who knew how quickly it could grow?

One last chance for a pack. One last chance for a leader to satisfy the magic clawing at his chest.

"You've seen my file, right?" he checked. He didn't want Gibbs to go into this unprepared.

"I'll try to remember not to bring the good silver with my lunch," Gibbs affirmed wryly. He turned towards the door. "I'll see you in D.C."

"I'm not that kind of werewolf!" Tony shouted after him.

He wasn't sure Gibbs heard him, but it didn't matter. He was wanted. He had accepted the invitation, more or less, and he intended to do so formally as soon as he could.

The barbed wire's death grip on his ribs started to ease.

* * *

Tony kind of wished that Gibbs had mentioned that Abby was a vampire before shoving them into a room together. Blood and death were not good scents to stumble onto unprepared, although he had to admit that in his line of work he'd more or less gotten used to it.

And it wasn't that the smell of blood coming from Abby's drink cup smelled bad. Not at all.

Which was part of the problem, but he was supposed to have more control over himself than this, so he tore his eyes away from the cup and forced the instinctive snarl off his face and replaced it with a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that."

"Hmph." Abby put her own fangs away and looked at his skeptically. "So you're Gibbs' new probie."

"Hey, I'm an experienced cop, not a probie," he protested.

She poked him. "Feels like new meat to me."

A human wouldn't have noticed his microscopic lean into the touch, but Abby wasn't human.

It was pathetic, he knew, but his only other significant touch for about two weeks now had come from two head slaps from Gibbs, and while the fey part of him didn't care one way or the other, the wolf was getting touch hungry. He just hadn't realized it was getting touch hungry to want to get cuddly with a vampire, even one with Gibbs' seal of approval and thus was presumably safe.

"Abbs," Gibbs said from behind them, his tone a little warning.

Abby's expression was already softening. "Okay, okay. We both keep our fangs away, and I'll stop poking you. Mostly. I can be bribed with Caff-POWs." She held out her hand expectantly.

He shook it a bit bemusedly. "Caff-POWs?" he asked with a pointed sniff.

She waved her free hand dismissively. She still hadn't let go of his. "Just because I don't sleep doesn't mean I can't enjoy caffeine. I add the flavoring myself. Now come take a look at this." She dragged him over to one of her computers.

Tony felt Gibbs disappear out the door behind them. He shot one pleading look over his shoulder, but it was more for form's sake than anything. Death cold or not, Abby's hand felt very welcome in his.

Before he left, she started the tradition of giving him at least one Abby-hug a day.

 _Pack_ , the wolf in him thought warmly.

Quite possibly the strangest one ever, but that was alright. Tony thought he could get used to this.

* * *

Kate was - Well, Kate was a lot of things.

The wolf in him thought she was a threat to his place in the pack, but at the same time wasn't entirely opposed to adding another female to the pack.

Tony thought he should probably keep that thought to himself.

The fey side of himself was a little concerned about the symbolism of adding yet another of death's creatures to the team, and that, that was another thought he kept to himself. Gibbs didn't need to hear the rumors going around that his unusual team somehow meant he had a death wish.

It had taken all of Tony's self-control not to start a fight when he heard that rumor. Gibbs trusted them, had accepted them. If the gossipers thought anyone on the team would turn on Gibbs after that, than they were delusional.

Tony's judicious use of threats aside, Kate was new and different, and the all too human part of him that he jealously guarded wasn't sure it liked new and different. Hadn't they been doing alright as they were? Hadn't he been working hard enough? Why did they need another person?

His talk with Gibbs helped, but he was still bristling a little when Kate brought her stuff in that first morning.

Kate rolled her eyes. "Down, boy. I don't care about whatever pack dynamics you've got set up."

"Who said anything about a pack?"

"Your body language. Very, very clearly." She set her stuff down on the desk and turned to face him. The shadows under her black eyes were suddenly a lot clearer, and Tony realized for the first time how tired she was.

"So why are you here?" he asked curiously. "They probably wouldn't have made you leave. The Secret Service is always desperate for banshees."

Kate's lips tightened. "If I tell you, can you set your issues aside and get to work?"

"Sure," he said, smiling brightly.

She looked at him doubtfully - fair enough - but she spilled anyway. "You know why they're so desperate for banshees?"

"Sure. You predict death. Seems handy in that line of work."

"And there's only one way we can prevent that death. It's expected that if we predict the president's death that we'll be prepared to make that sacrifice."

He nodded. "And you weren't sure you could do that?"

Solid black eyes shouldn't be able to flash, but hers did. "I would have done my duty." She sighed. "It's just that, as long as we're in service, our contract says that the president is the only one we'll die for."

Tony connected the dots. "You knew Major Kerry was going to die."

"And I couldn't do anything about it." She dropped into her chair. "Anything else?"

"Would you have died for him? If you could?"

She shrugged tightly. "I don't know, but I was ready for a job where I'd have a choice."

"Fair enough." The moment was getting a little too emotional, so he stretched and got up. "Speaking of things worth dying for, one of the tech's brought in some of these chocolate cookies that - "

"Are going to have to wait." Gibbs walked around the corner. "We've got a body."

"We could grab some on our way out?" Tony said hopefully.

Kate rolled her eyes. Gibbs cuffed the back of his head.

"Getting the car now, Boss."

* * *

McGee . . . McGee was a whole other barrel of fish.

He, at least, did not smell of death.

He didn't smell like anything.

Not of sawdust, strong drink, and warmth like Gibbs. Not of latex, steel, and decay like Ducky. Not of any of the other smells that humans so casually picked up by proximity.

Nothing.

Yet his heartbeat was resolutely human.

So. McGeek was actually McWizard.

The vacant hole where McGee's scent should be made his nose twitch irritably and his hackles start to rise. A bad scent was one thing. No scent was something else. An abomination.

Kate scoffed at him when he described it that way to her. "Don't you think you're being a bit melodramatic, Tony?"

"Even air has a scent, Kate," he insisted. "McWizard's got nothing. Nada. Not only does he not exist, he creates a vacuum in the place where he should exist. Come on. You can't tell me your banshee senses aren't tingling."

Kate rolled her eyes. "Wait till he's dying. Then we'll talk."

"I might be willing to speed that up a bit," he muttered.

"No killing the probie," Gibbs ordered. Tony jumped. "He's our local contact. We need him." He walked past them to the car.

"Is there a Gibbs shaped hole in your senses too?" Kate asked sweetly.

"It's Gibbs," he protested. "He doesn't register as a threat."

"You coming?" Gibbs called sharply.

Kate winced. "Even when he hasn't had his coffee?"

Tony raised his arms helplessly.

He thought it was probably better not to tell her that as far as the wolf was concerned, unless they were in danger, the pack was just an extension of itself, and thus, not something to note in a world full of strange and dangerous scents to keep track of.

Especially since Kate was now pack.

* * *

When McGee officially joined the team, the problem became a bit more serious. It was one thing to jump when Gibbs came up behind him. It was another thing to constantly have to watch his back to make sure a potentially homicidal wizard wasn't sneaking up behind him.

"I just can't get over a guy that doesn't smell like anything," Tony complained to Abby. "And Kate's finally admitted that she can't hear him, whatever that means, so I'm not the only one having a problem."

Abby frowned. "Tim's got a scent. I can smell his blood just fine. It's got that sort of zippy tang to it that magic always gives - oh!"

Tony leaned forward on his stool. "What?"

"Kate can't hear him. That doesn't mean that she can't, like, physically hear him, it means that she can't get a grip on what his death song should sound like."

"I thought banshees only heard those when someone was about to die."

"They only sing them when someone's about to die," Abby corrected. "Apparently the music gets extra loud then. But they can always hear them. Except it's not an actual sound - it's actually through some kind of psychic connection."

"So?"

"So, when you say you smell someone, I don't think you're actually getting an actual smell. I bet if you really tried, you could still smell McGee's jacket or whatever. What you can't smell is his essence, and it's driving you crazy."

"I think I would know if I were psychic," he protested. "And that doesn't sound like any werewolf power I've ever heard of." Not that there might not be some pack out there that had it - there were almost as many variations on werewolves as there were packs - but surely Dad would have mentioned something like that if it had been in the family curse.

"But you're not just a werewolf, are you?" Abby said, jumping up and down a little in her excitement. "You've got fey blood too."

"It doesn't actually do anything!" Or nothing helpful, anyway. Binding curses and the distinct possibility that he might live longer than he liked weren't helpful.

"That you know of," Abby pointed out. "I think that ability got connected with your sense of smell and you just never consciously separated the two. And since I'm sure Timmy has shields up to keep anyone from messing with his mind . . . "

"No spare essence for me to sniff out," he said, glumly accepting her theory. "Great. Still doesn't fix the problem, though."

"Well, I can't fake a death song," Abby agreed, drooping a little, "but! But I might be able to do something about the other." She grabbed for her phone. "Gibbs! I needs McGee down here now." She bounced anxiously as she waited for McGee to get up there.

Tim poked his head in nervously. "Abby? Tony?"

"Hey, McShielded," Tony greeted him. "Come on in. Abby's had an idea."

Abby grabbed McGee and dragged him over to one of the empty stools. "Tell me everything."

McGee shot Tony a panicked glance. "About?"

"You, silly! I'm going to get Ducky to help me brew up something that will stop Tony from being all growly around you, and I can't do that if all I'm going off of is three meetings and a bad taste in shirts." She frowned at him.

McGee shot another nervous look at Tony, and Tony decided the McGeek might be more comfortable spilling his life story without his intimidating presence. "Well, as fascinating as I'm sure that will be, I've gotta go. Let me know what you come up with, Abbs."

To be honest, he wasn't sure what he'd expected. One of those little air fresheners you hung in your car dangling out of McGee's pocket, maybe. 'Certified Geek Scented' or something like that.

Instead, Abby called them both up to the lap where a perfume bottle full of glittering liquid stood under an improvised spotlight.

"Behold, eau de McGee!" she said proudly. She grabbed the bottle and spritzed it on McGee before he could protest.

While McGee was still sputtering, Tony took a deep breath in.

Old books. Typewriter ink. A spark of electricity. And a faint hint of the bittersweet tang of magic that might have been what was holding the scent together or might have been meant to represent the scent hiding in McGee's blood.

It probably wasn't exactly what McGee's essence actually smelled like, but it was close enough to what Tony's subconscious thought it should smell like that some of that nagging sense of wrongness went away.

"I have to wear this everyday?" McGee complained.

Tony slung an arm around his shoulder. "Ah, come on, McGee. You smell good."

"But - "

"And I won't tell Gibbs who spilled his coffee."

"Done."

* * *

Tony loved the opportunity to spar with Gibbs in training. It was a chance to test his limits without having to worry about the consequences, because if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Gibbs could handle anything he threw at him.

And it just felt right to his instincts, normally so carefully guarded, to let loose and train for war with the leader of his pack.

For those precious minutes, he wasn't fighting for attention. He wasn't plotting how to get a casual touch. He had Gibbs' full focus as they wrestled on the mat.

He didn't mind losing. He just loved the game.

* * *

A strong leader at the head of the pack. A certain female fellow agent who was slowly warming up to him. A youngling to train in the ways of the pack. A healer and his assistant downstairs, and a fellow protector dancing happily in her lab. Tony had never wanted more. Had rarely even dreamed of having this much. If he could have just this forever, it would be enough.

Then one day as they worked, he heard someone start to hum.

He glanced up, frowning, because it sounded like Kate doing the humming, and Kate had never sung a note without there being a dying victim present before, for obvious reasons. People got twitchy around singing banshees.

But Kate was humming now, seemingly without realizing it. The sound grew louder and louder until it transformed Into a wordless song.

It made the transition just as Gibbs walked into the bullpen.

Kate's eyes widened in horrified realization, but the song didn't stop.

McGee's hands had frozen on his keyboard, Tony was half out of his seat and growling, but Gibbs barely paused on his way over to his desk. "Not dead yet," he told them. "We've got work to do."

Kate's song dropped back to a hum, but it didn't stop.

Tony didn't know what it sounded like to the others.

To him, it sounded like madness, and a lone wolf howling a ragged lament.

* * *

He pulled Kate aside as soon as he could. Gibbs was with Abby and McGee. The two of them should be able to keep him safe for the moment.

"You can sense when it's getting closer, right?"

She nodded wearily. "We still have a little time. Not much."

"I know the only way to stop a death is with another death," he said in an undertone.

Kate's mouth set grimly. "I don't - "

"So when it comes down to it, tell me where I need to be."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Push me in the path of the bullet, tell me I need to be the first around the corner, I don't care. Whatever it takes. Just make sure I know what I need to do to get in the way." He was older now. Technically, he might be able to lead the pack on his own.

Practically, he was determined to prevent that necessity or die trying. Or, in this case, both.

Kate squeezed his hand, new determination in her eyes. "Speaking of things worth dying for, huh?"

"Promise me," he whispered desperately.

"We'll save him," she promised.

* * *

Technically, she didn't break her word.

He just didn't see that until it was too late.

* * *

There was a hole in his sense of the world. A Kate shaped spot that should have smelled of bullets, chocolate, and, least importantly, death.

Kate still smelled of at least two of those things, but now the smell just made him feel sick.

He wished Gibbs had let him come to the Challenge against Ari. He wanted to rip the hunter's throat out with his teeth.

Then Ziva started prowling around Kate's space, overwhelming her fading scent with her own smell.

Silver. Sand. A heat entirely unlike Gibbs'.

And, underneath at all, the scent of dried blood.

She was a hunter. He was pretty sure that scent was both psychic and literal.

Abby agreed with him.

* * *

The night after the news about the house party that neither he nor Abby had been invited to came out, Tony wandered over to Gibbs' basement. He liked it down here. It smelled pretty much exactly like Gibbs, minus the warmth.

Gibbs was sanding down the boat. He tossed a piece of sandpaper to Tony and they got to work.

Tony - surprise, surprise - was the first to break the silence. "Was Palmer there?"

"Nope."

"No monsters allowed, huh? You know, my friends and I used to play a game like that, except the rule was no girls allowed. And we grew out of that when we were about twelve. Don't guess that will work now with Abby here. We could still start our own club, though. Monsters Anonymous, no normals allowed - "

Gibbs hand on the back of his head cut him off.

"Unless, of course, you want to come," Tony corrected quickly. "We can bake cookies. It'll be great."

"That part's not the problem, DiNozzo."

Tony ran back over the rest of what he'd just said. "And . . . I will get over my childish dislike of being excluded and allow Ziva to invite who and what she likes over in peace?"

Gibbs actually snorted at that. "Try again."

Tony scanned his rant again. "I've got nothing, Boss."

"The monster bit?" Gibbs suggested mildly. "Pretty sure we had a seminar on not talking like that."

"You paid attention during one of the seminars, Boss?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, and Tony backtracked quickly.

"Right. You're always paying attention. Sorry, Boss."

Gibbs shook his head in a way Tony was almost sure was fondly and got to the point. "You really going to tell me you think Abby's a monster?"

Tony winced. No, he was not going to do that. He couldn't really claim Palmer was either. He was just too earnestly awkward for that. "No, but the meetings will get awfully lonely if I'm the only member of the club."

Gibbs put the sandpaper down and brought his arm up. Tony ducked his head preemptively, but the hand came to rest on his shoulder instead, where it gave a comforting squeeze. "I only take the best for my team. You're not normal. You're better than normal. And it's got nothing to do with your blood."

Tony's smile felt more genuine than it had all day. "Very Special Agent DiNozzo. Curse or no curse, huh?"

"And fey or no fey," Gibbs agreed. "I'll talk to Ziva."

* * *

Tony warmed up to Ziva by degrees until her scent was firmly entrenched as pack.

Not that he'd ever tell her that. She'd probably be horrified.

Still, things were pretty good again. There was still a Kate shaped hole, but he'd gotten used to operating around holes in the pack a long time ago.

And then the car Gibbs was in went off the dock into freezing cold water.

Tony had followed their connection the minute his concerns had gotten truly raised, but he hadn't been quick enough.

Now Gibbs and the girl were in the water, and the gang that had driven them there was standing there, guns ready.

Tony didn't even have to shift shapes to tear through them like paper.

And then the water waited.

Tony's mother had worn her favorite silver necklace the day she had walked into the ocean with no intention of walking back out.

Tony had tried to swim out after her. If he had caught up with her, the silver necklace wouldn't have been a problem. He wasn't that kind of werewolf.

But he never got that far. Partially because he had been ten, but mainly because the water had been freezing cold.

And he was that kind of werewolf.

Back in the day, the legend had been that you could cure an Italian werewolf by holding them down in ice water as they were about to change forms.

That was true, for a given value of "cure."

Death cured most things.

He hadn't been in the middle of changing when he'd swum after his mother, though. He hadn't been trapped in the agony of half one thing, half another.

Or no more than usual, anyway.

He had survived. It had been a near thing, but he had survived.

He was older now. Stronger. He had a pack to lend him strength.

And this was Gibbs. Gibbs and an innocent.

A second had passed, no more.

Tony dived.

The water felt like knives. The wolf tried to spring forward to defend him, but it was just as quickly shoved back. His muscles rippled, trying to shift first one way, then the other. Tony was pretty sure he'd rather walk through fire.

He swam deeper.

The magic bubbled up to the surface of his skin. HIs muscles were seizing up.

He didn't have time for caution or restrained strength.

He ripped the door off the car, grabbed the girl since she was closest, and swam for the surface.

He broke the surface and gasped, precious relief granted to the parts of him above water. He threw the girl onto the dock.

And forced himself back down.

His connection to Gibbs drew him deeper, but it was flickering in and out.

If Tony'd been on the surface, he would have been screaming.

Gibbs. Gibbs. Gibbs.

Gibbs was limp when Tony finally reached him. Tony felt about to pass out himself.

The surface. He had to get them to the surface.

His heart was beating too fast, working too hard to try to keep him alive. His muscles were half wolf and half human and almost useless. He was running on magic and will alone, and if he'd been alone, he wasn't sure the second one would have been enough to get him to the surface.

But his pack was in danger. Gibbs was in danger.

Tony broke the surface and crawled onto dry land, dragging Gibbs behind him.

Neither of the two people he'd rescued were breathing.

Tony dropped to his knees beside them. He wanted to lay down and sleep for the next hundred years. He wanted to rest.

Instead, he forced air into their lungs and prayed.

* * *

After, when they were all being examined by the nice paramedics, Gibbs managed to make his way over to him. He had an odd look on his face.

"Boss?" Tony asked nervously.

Gibbs shook the odd expression off. "You did good."

"He almost committed suicide was what he did," one of the paramedics snapped. "He had absolutely no business being in water that cold, and he knew it. We're going to get a specialist at the hospital to get him checked over."

"Superman never has to get checked over after someone hits him with kryptonite," Tony grumbled.

"In case you haven't noticed, you're not a superhero," the exasperated paramedic said. "Now please hold still."

For once, Tony did as he was told. Stillness turned pretty quick to sleep.

But Gibbs was sitting by his bedside when he woke up, Abby had left a little teddy bear with a superhero cape, and the rest of the pack's scents were all over the room, so that was alright.

* * *

Ziva left. Tony watched her go with a heart full of might have beens.

They could have been good together, he thought, but while Ziva had come to terms with being on a team with him, getting together with something her family had spent centuries hunting was a whole other question.

Still, distance didn't change the fact that she was pack. If she ever needed him, he'd come running.

* * *

Bishop came. She smelled like meat, junk food, sweaters, and hunger.

There was part of Tony that warned of danger and wanted him to avoid her.

The rest of him brought her a cupcake and focused more on her smile than the way she couldn't eat it fast enough.

* * *

Tony still loved to spar with Gibbs, but he didn't go quite full out now.

Gibbs could still beat him, of course, Tony never doubted that, but it took more out of him now, and Tony didn't want Gibbs to have to push when he didn't have to. He'd seen the way Gibbs struggled with aches and pains now, and the last thing he wanted to do was aggravate them.

McGee had noticed too. He'd started enchanting Gibbs' chair to ease those aches. Abby was conspiring with Ducky to slip things into Gibbs' coffee. Bishop hadn't noticed yet, but then, she was still new. She didn't know what Gibbs' eyes looked like without tight lines of pain around them.

After the gunshot wound, it just got worse. They walked carefully around him, trying to help any way they could, even when all they could do was back off and let him have the privacy he seemed to want.

Gibbs lashed out more, but Tony understood that. Pain tended to do that to people.

 _You're still in charge,_ he tried to say with his body language. _We'll respect you no matter how much pain you're in_ , he tried to say with his quick responses to orders.

He asked to spar less and cut the time they fought shorter. He helped Abby and Ducky research better ways to help him. He distracted Bishop when a flash of pain finally made its way onto Gibbs' face. He took over whatever duties he could.

An ancient, buried instinct suggested that he might could take over the pack, but Tony suppressed it in disgust, and the rest of his instincts were in agreement with him.

Gibbs' pack. Gibbs' rules. Gibbs who had welcomed him into this family and saved his life. Saved his sanity.

That kind of blood debt didn't just go away, his fey side knew, and this was Gibbs. It didn't matter if Gibbs was on his deathbed, he would never be weak, and they weren't even close to that point yet.

Gibbs was family, and Tony would do whatever Gibbs needed him to do.

* * *

Except. Except, there was one thing he couldn't do, one time his instincts got away from him.

There was going to be a Challenge, and Gibbs still hadn't healed from his wound. There was going to be a Challenge, and it hit all the wrong buttons in Tony.

So instead of standing aside as was his proper place at this stage of the hunt, he stepped forward and claimed the kill for himself.

If this were a normal wolf pack he could have been thrown out for that, but they had never been accused of being normal. He didn't think Gibbs would be quite that angry, but he was expecting a reprimand all the same.

"That'll be a load of paperwork," he said, trying to pass it off as a joke.

The others were applauding, he realized with a wince.

But Gibbs - Gibbs smiled.

Tony grinned back.

* * *

After that, Tony figured he had permission to do what he had to. Gibbs had always been pretty understanding about things like that, so he shouldn't have been surprised that he was willing to indulge Tony in this.

The others started doing it to. Not at all conventional, but, well. None of them were.

* * *

The electricity went down in most of D.C. and their apartments lost heat one by one. They ended up crowded into Gibbs' living room, gathered around his fire, and practically on top of each other.

Tony curled into the warmth. They were here, and they were safe. He was part of them, and they were part of him.

There was no warmth quite like the warmth of the pack.


	3. Kate: Still We Sing Lukannon

**A/N: Quote taken from Kipling's "** **Lukannon." If you haven't read it, go take a peek. It'll give you a bit more context for the quote.**

 **This chapter was written at the request of a guest reviewer who wanted more about banshees. Hope this satisfies, anon.**

* * *

" _I heard them lift the chorus that drowned the breakers' song–  
_ _The Beaches of Lukannon–two million voices strong." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

Once, when Kate had just reached adolescence, her mother took her out to the desert and left her there for an hour.

It wasn't meant as a cruelty - Kate was left under a shelter for shade and had two full cases of water, more than she could possibly drink.

Her mother drove away, and when the sound of the car faded, there should have been no sound left. No wind to stir the dust up. No people talking in the distance. No sound of faint death songs getting stronger by the day.

It should have been silent.

But Kate still heard the music.

 _Her_ music. Just as her mother had warned her she would.

Like the sound of her own heartbeat, it was normally too faint to hear. Now it was the only sound she heard.

Normally, they didn't sing the death songs until the death was near, but that was only because in the crowds of a city, the songs were too faint to hear otherwise and because people were superstitious about banshees singing before their time.

Out here it was different. Out here there was no one to frighten. Out here there were no sounds to confuse with the song.

That was why her mother had left her out here, of course. It was every banshee's right to sing her own song, because no one would sing it for her when her time came.

She was a banshee, one of the fey. Her time might not come for centuries.

Kate hummed the notes and tried to capture the distant song.

* * *

For a banshee, the Secret Service was willing to relax certain standards.

Kate worked ten times harder than anyone else to prove that in her case, they wouldn't have to.

She still had to put up with a lot, of course. Some thought she had only gotten in because of her blood. Some had a problem with her being a woman.

Once, and only once, she got pushed far enough that she snapped.

So she looked up at her smirking tormentor and smiled pleasantly at him before softly beginning to hum.

She probably shouldn't have enjoyed the way he turned pale so fast.

It wasn't his real death song, of course. Those were far too sacred to use for such a minor cause. It was just a few notes composed off the top of her head.

His real death song was jagged and painful and far too easy to hear. She tried to be nicer to him after that, now that she'd noticed.

That didn't seem to make him feel any better.

* * *

People were wary of her, so she had few friends in the Service, but Major Kerry was an exception. He knew what she was, but he never seemed to particularly care.

She warned him when his song grew louder, but careful as he was, it didn't do any good.

She should have known better than to try.

* * *

After that, she just wanted to rest. To work for a superior she had no obligation to die for. To deal with cases where the music had already been silenced.

Tony made that easy. She was pretty sure that if she ever took the time to untangle his song from everyone else's in the bullpen's, it would be just as annoying as he was. Abby's death was so far in the future that Kate could barely hear it, and Gibbs -

Gibbs was human. She was sure he couldn't hear his song.

But he still accepted it somehow, in a way she'd rarely seen before. On a case where one witness was a little girl who talked Gibbs into dancing with her, he twirled her around slowly, and it took Kate's breath away.

Because Gibbs was dancing to the rhythm of his song's beat.

* * *

She wasn't sure if she couldn't hear McGee's song because he was going to have a wizard's prolonged life, or because of his shields. It bothered her some, but not so much as the lack of scent did Tony. D.C. was bursting with music, and it was easy to pretend McGee's notes were just lost in the throng.

* * *

NCIS was easier than the Secret Service had been.

Or, normally it was.

Then there was the case with Suzanne, the poor woman that had been buried alive, and Kate stuck close to her, because the woman's song was thundering to a close.

There was only one way to stop that, and Kate - Kate wasn't sure. She didn't know Suzanne, not like she did her team, but she liked her, and she was a civilian. Kate might not be sworn to protect her, but she wasn't sure she could live with herself if she just stood aside.

Then they met with the man Gibbs was sure was guilty, and Kate heard his song, just as loud. The two melodies entwined together, fast and furious, and she desperately tried to sort it out.

"They're going to die," she warned Gibbs. "We shouldn't leave them alone."

Tony was already starting forward when -

"Bomb!" the guilty man shouted.

And two songs ended with a flash of white light.

* * *

That was the part she hated. No matter how beautiful the song, it always came crashing to an end, and it normally sounded a bit unfinished when it did. There was always more that could have been sung.

* * *

Tony grew on her more than she wanted to admit. So when they were on a stakeout and trying to pass the time, she didn't make the assumptions she once would have when he asked his question.

They'd been discussing music, and he'd asked, in a voice that was trying too hard to be casual, "What's my song sound like?"

It was just the two of them in the car. There were other people close by, but they were alone enough for her to hear the notes with little concentration. All she'd have to do was listen.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I've never listened to it."

"I bet it's something catchy," he mused. "Like 'It's a Small World.'"

She started to answer, but her attention was caught by the view out the windshield. "Look! Movement."

The moment was lost.

She never told him that she was afraid to listen because she was pretty sure that whatever it was, it would be impossibly sad.

* * *

When Ari caught her, she tilted her head to listen and then smiled at him. "Want to know what your death song sounds like?"

"Death is death. What does it matter how it sounds?"

She leaned forward, still smiling. "It matters because your's doesn't end with a bang, Ari. It doesn't even end with a thump. All you're going to get a whisper, and no one will care when you're gone."

She shook him a bit, she could tell, which was the whole point. And what she said was . . . mostly true. Ari's song was quiet and tension laden, but there was also the sound of faint Hebrew singing in the background, mournful enough to give her chills.

The song had a bad habit of fitting neatly into the background of the songs of her team in a way that could have been coincidence or could have meant their deaths were tied together.

"No explosions for you," she told him with a smile. "Just a tiny little squeak."

Ari flinched.

* * *

Banshee songs sounded different to everyone who heard them. Music, after all, could be interpreted differently; a banshee's song cut straight to the heart of the matter and sang truth to all who heard.

To Kate, the song she heard that morning sounded a bit like "Taps," a bit like gunfire, and a bit like a child crying for her father not to go. The sound was familiar, like she'd heard it in the past, before it had morphed into its final chords. She hummed it absently, trying to translate the sound into something more easily understood so she could sort out whose it was.

The sound grew louder, and Kate abruptly caught the all too familiar undertones to the song.

Gibbs.

* * *

She wasn't exactly surprised when Tony drew her aside. She'd have to be blind not to see how much he depended on Gibbs. Of course he'd want to save the man's life.

She was expecting, however, for him to ask the sacrifice of _her._

But he didn't. He stood there and asked her how to take the sacrifice onto himself.

It was possible, technically. That was what few people outside the banshees knew. A life was a life, and that was all that was demanded. Since Tony was willing, she could guide him into being the sacrifice.

For the first time, she allowed herself to listen to his song. His lonely, desperate, beautiful song.

A song that was not even close to being finished.

She could cut it off early. She could leave it alone and let Gibbs die. She had options.

"We'll save him," she promised him, still not quite sure what she meant to do.

* * *

She listened to her own song, late that night in the office. She put in the noise canceling earbuds she used sometimes when it all got to be too much, and she focused on the song rushing through her blood.

The song was coming to the end of a verse now. It could end here naturally, or it could flow on for verse after verse. The choice was hers.

And the choice was: Could she look Tony in the eye if she broke her promise? Could she look Gibbs in the eye if she helped Tony die for him?

She looked across at Tim, sleeping at his desk, and wondered how it would feel to have magic that deadened your emotions instead of grabbing your heart and tearing it to bits.

* * *

She thought about calling her mother or her sister, but she couldn't do that to them. How would she even begin a conversation like that?

"Hey, mom, have you ever considered dying for someone before?"

It would just worry her family. She couldn't do that to them.

But the song was growing louder and her time was running out.

* * *

And then the day arrived. Gibbs' song was so loud that she had to sing it if she was going to hear anything else. She sang it quietly to release it while they crept up the stairs, the notes barely breaths in the hot, still air.

The roof. The heat. The gun.

Kate flew forward into its path, Gibbs' song screaming in her blood.

 _Speaking of someone worth dying for._

She had her answer.

The bullet couldn't pass through her vest, but that didn't matter. Gibbs' song was abruptly quiet again, and her own was loud in her ears.

If Gibbs had died, she could have lived, but she had found something worth her life and now it was time to pay the bill.

Gibbs and Tony were saying something, but she couldn't hear them over the rushing of the song in her blood.

She stood up slowly.

 _No one will sing your song when the time comes._

No one but her.

She opened her mouth, and the notes tumbled out. It sounded like triumph, like a valkyrie victorious, and it was even more beautiful than it had been in the desert, because now it was playing in time to Gibbs' hero's march, and Tony's lament for the pack.

And Ari's suddenly loud, tension laden song.

Kate's song cut off halfway through a note.


	4. McGee: The Road to Endor

_"The road to En-Dor is easy to tread." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

McGee's first memory was of his father shaking out the newspaper and announcing, with a slight tightening of his eyes, that Penelope had finally been arrested for being a hedgewitch.

McGee'd had no idea who that was, and it took even his mother a few moments to connect the dots. "Penelope? Your mother?"

"Mm. Let's hope it doesn't reflect on us too much. I _told_ her she needed to get registered."

"If it's just for a few minor magics . . . " his mother tried hopefully.

The admiral snorted. "She was over six hundred years old. There was nothing minor about her magics. No, that's just what the paper wants people to think. It'd scare the masses too much if they knew an enchantress had been running around unchecked."

At the time, Tim had been more interested in his breakfast than the conversation. It was only later that he realized the significance of the memory and tracked down the newspaper article.

Penelope Langston had made the front page of the local news. A photographer had snapped a picture of her being led away. Even with her hands cuffed behind her, she looked like a queen.

She was imprisoned only thirty minutes away from where they were living at the time.

If his father ever went to visit her, he didn't mention it.

By the time Tim was old enough to go on his own, she was already dead.

* * *

Duty. Sacrifice. Willpower.

Those were the virtues he grew up having drummed into his head. They had a duty to protect humanity, particularly those of their nation. They had to be willing to sacrifice to do it. They had to have the willpower necessary to bend magic to do their will in order to successfully do so.

Not everyone had the potential to use magic. His father's line did, and he insisted his children learn to use it. He steamrolled over their mother and had both Tim and Sarah registered as apprentices before they were ten years old.

Willpower, duty, and sacrifice, all rolled into one.

The first piece of magic Tim ever did was to sign a contract. Since he was still a minor, his father had to sign too.

The whole thing still felt surreal in his mind. They'd sat in a plush office as his father read out the contract and explained what it meant.

Tim agreed to use his powers to protect the nation. Tim agreed to use his powers to protect humanity. Tim agreed not to turn against his family. If the magic consumed him and he broke those terms, he agreed to pay the price.

He'd signed the document with a gold pen from the desk, and then he'd picked up the ancient covenant knife and dug the point into the index finger of his left hand. He'd whimpered a little as the blood welled up. There was something heavy and painful in the knife that went far beyond the pain of the cut.

"Go on, son," his father had said impatiently.

Tim'd shot a quick, pleading look at the impassive lawyer witnessing the proceedings before biting his lip and continuing onto the next finger. All ten had to be pricked.

By the time he was ready for his right hand, Tim was crying freely, and his father was out of patience. He grabbed the knife and finished the process himself.

Then Tim pressed his bleeding fingers to the space at the bottom of the stack of papers, and his father, as McGee's mentor, did the same process himself. He made the cuts quickly, never flinching, and he stared straight into his son's eyes as he did so to remind him of his weakness.

His mother had taken one look at his still bleeding hands when he got home and started a screaming match with his father. They were both too busy to look at his hands, so Tim snuck away to the bathroom and used a chair to reach the bandages in the closet. Sarah had followed him to get away from the screaming, and she helped him press the bandages down with her tiny toddler hands.

* * *

Tim had never had many friends, and he lost most of the ones he did have once he started learning magic.

"Magic was not given to man like it was given to some of the other races," his father told him once when he was in a talkative mood. "Man wanted it, so man reached out and took it. There's always a price, though. And the price for doing what it takes to protect humanity is becoming something different from it."

Tim watched his friends play with a faint sense of incomprehension, and his interactions with them got steadily more awkward, like there was a fog drenched gulf between them and McGee couldn't quite see through it. He felt distant and separate even when wrapped in one of his mother's hugs, especially after a particularly long practice session.

He supposed this was what his father meant by different.

When a day long practice session left him feeling completely numb, he crawled into bed with his sister in an attempt to just feel something.

His father frowned when he found McGee curled protectively around her the next morning. "You'll build up a tolerance," he said.

McGee felt the aching emptiness in his chest where it felt like something had been scraped out with a dull spoon and thought, _I don't want to get used to this._

* * *

High Wizard McGee was one of the Navy's most powerful wizards. He was called away often, dealing with sea serpents and krakens, sirens and ghostly disappearances.

In his absence, he would leave books and stern instructions to practice, first for Tim, then for Tim and Sarah.

Sarah dumped the books under her bed and ran off to play. McGee read the books carefully then walked to the library for thick texts on science and magazine articles on the latest tech.

 _What are we doing with magic that could be done with science instead?_

He read articles on fossil fuel and sustainable energy and compared it to the cost of magic.

 _If we made the switch fully to tech instead of magic, how much would it cost us? How much does it cost us not to?_

When his father got home, he took one look at Tim's alternate reading and muttered a single word that set it on fire.

"That was the library's," Tim said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Then you'd better learn the spell to fix it," his father said implacably.

Tim did. Tim also learned how to hide his books before his father got home.

* * *

McGee had every intention of leaving magic behind the minute he left the house. By that point, though, some of the spells - shielding his mind, summoning objects, warming himself on cold days - were too much of a habit to easily quit.

He felt better than he had in years, but he also felt a warning tug at the tips of his fingers.

He wasn't an apprentice anymore. It was one thing to use bits of magic selfishly if he was also using it to serve, but it was another thing entirely to use it solely for himself and not to fulfill his contract.

The day he graduated, blood welled up at his fingertips and slowly began to drip onto his robes. It wouldn't stop no matter how much pressure he applied. Muttered spells only made it worse.

He rushed back to his apartment. Stacks of his resume waited on the folding table that was shoved into a corner. He pulled on gloves with shaking hands and started shoving them into envelopes so that he could send them out to every organization that might fit the qualification of service to his country that he could think of.

He shoved the envelopes into the mailbox and stumbled out onto the streets. He muttered protection spells for everyone he met until he felt like he was looking at the world through a distant telescope, his hands were shaking, and the bleeding had stopped.

There was no breaking a contract made with a covenant knife.

* * *

NCIS was interested. McGee accepted.

He covered the walls of his new apartment with charts that compared tracking spells to GPS and protection charms to jackets laced with cold iron. Thick stacks of tech magazines covered his coffee table, and his computer, rather than his spellbooks, took pride of place.

But he used his magic to serve, like he'd sworn. He gave protection spells to other agents and to the sailors he came into contact with. He tracked sailors gone AWOL. He didn't bother with a filing system and just called the papers he needed into his hands.

There was a news article about a wizard who'd gone rogue and had bled out through his hands rather than submit to the authorities. McGee took the day off and spent it being violently ill in his bathroom.

Sarah went off to college. At McGee's suggestion, she volunteered on weekends.

The moment Sarah was out of the house, their mother filed for divorce.

High Wizard McGee was busy with more important matters. He gave her the settlement she wanted and moved on with his life.

Tim hadn't talked to him in four years.

* * *

His work was important, and he was using little enough magic that he was more awkwardly distant than terrifyingly numb. That was pretty much all McGee dared to hope for.

His coworkers were as awkward around him as he was around them. News stories of wizards who had gone too deep into the magic, gotten irritated, and gone on a killing spree until the covenant magic brought them down didn't help.

Tony was the first person to pull a prank on him in years. Tim wasn't sure why - If Tony's own power gave him a false sense of security, if he was genuinely that reckless, or if he just trusted Tim.

The prank was annoying, but . . . He liked it. It filled one of those empty spots that ached in his chest.

And Kate was nice, and Gibbs was a legend, and none of them were afraid of him at all.

And the work they were doing was so important, there was no chance that he'd wake up one day with blood covering his hands.

He wanted in.

And for once, McGee got what he wanted.

* * *

Not for long, of course.

* * *

He stared at Kate's body down in the morgue

Duty. Sacrifice. Willpower.

Kate had embodied those more than he ever had.

He hadn't used much magic lately, so the tears welled up as he stared at the body.

He caught the others talking to her like she was still there. Saying goodbye. Gibbs. Tony. Abby. Even Ducky.

He listened and he listened, but he never heard a thing.

* * *

Gibbs wanted him to stick to small charms, he knew. For the first several months, he did.

But Kate's death seemed to open some kind of floodgate, and suddenly they were neck deep in the kinds of cases McGee had nightmares about.

Wendigoes. Werewolf maulings. Fey ideas of revenge. All those things that went bump in the night and that he was sworn to defend humanity from.

This was the war. This was the darkness that they could never fully sweep back but that he was supposed to guard against.

And more and more magic pumped out of him to do so.

* * *

It was dark when he saw the gun. Dark when he pulled the trigger. Dark with the kind of shadows that laughed when the light arrived and revealed that he'd shot a cop, a good cop, who'd been trying to bring down a cannibalistic shapeshifter.

"Death is frequent in our line of work," Ziva advised him. "Every hunter accepts this when he or she goes out."

Unsurprisingly, the man's partner didn't see it that way.

"He's a wizard," he snarled. "He's snapped and started his rampage."

"If that were true, he'd be bleeding out by now," Gibbs said in a deceptively calm voice.

And that was true. He hadn't snapped. But -

But he wasn't sure he was feeling this like he should either. He should feel sick, shouldn't he? Guilty?

Something more than this bone numbing cold.

Tony showed up at his apartment and proceeded to irritate him for the next thirty minutes.

"I don't need this right now!" McGee finally burst out. "What, are you trying to be annoying?"

He'd meant it sarcastically, but Tony answered with deadly earnest. "Yes," he said, moving with fey grace to sit on his couch. "And I'm still alive. Clearly, you haven't snapped."

Suddenly, McGee just felt tired. "Yeah, I know I haven't." He collapsed onto the chair by his prized computers.

"Okay. So what's bothering you then? Your first kill?"

"Yes." He scrubbed a hand across his face. "No. I don't know. It bothers me, of course it bothers me, but I can't help feeling it should bother me more."

"Ah." Tony leaned back. "I ever tell you about my first kill?"

Tim shook his head miserably.

"I ripped a man's throat out with my teeth. I was in wolf form," Tony hastily tacked on as he leaned forward, "and the man was the kind of monster that puts us actual monsters to shame. But I did it. And you know how it felt?"

"Bad?" Tim assumed.

Tony shook his head slowly. "The hot blood between my teeth? The thrill of a hunt completed? Defending my territory? I've rarely felt so alive."

Tim swallowed.

"Later I saw his mom sobbing on the news," Tony added in a quieter voice. "At which point I excused myself to the bathroom and threw up till the only thing left in my stomach was the lining. I think I broke down crying myself at some point. Both sides of my instincts were pretty disgusted with me for that, but the little bit that's just Tony DiNozzo felt the need to do it." He stared down at his hands for a moment before looking up to meet Tim's eyes. "I'm the last person to tell you how to be human. But for what it's worth, I think you're doing alright."

"Thanks," Tim said softly. "It means a lot."

Tony flashed him a grin with far too many teeth. For once, though, Tim managed a shaky smile back.

* * *

The partner turned out to be the shapeshifter. Or, rather, the shapeshifter had killed and replaced the partner.

"It is things like this that make so many hunters paranoid," Ziva said with distaste.

And - ok. McGee can kind of see her point. On the other hand -

"I think we're pretty safe though," he told her. "I mean, can you imagine a shapeshifter trying to imitate Tony? He'd have to study for years just to get the movie references."

Tony grinned and gave a little half-bow. "What can I say, ladies and gents, I'm one of a kind. Literally. I check the half-blood register monthly. And if anyone tries to replace one of you, I'll know in a heartbeat." He tapped his nose. "I'd sniff 'em out."

"Yes, unless they stole McGee's perfume."

"It's not perfume!" McGee protested.

Ziva ignored him. "Leaving behind your senses, what do you think the odds would be of someone noticing if, say, Gibbs was replaced?"

"No way they'd get away with it," Tony said instantly. "Leaving aside my super senses, they'd be dead of the caffeine intake within a day."

"That won't be the only death if I don't start seeing some work in here," Gibbs said, stalking into the squad room with a foul mood and a cup of coffee.

"On it, Boss!"

* * *

McGee could have dealt. Would have dealt.

But then there was the explosion, and Gibbs lost his memory.

Tony paced outside the boss's room like a wolf on a chain, growling at anyone not in a doctor's coat that came too close.

McGee had seen Tony tense before. He'd seen him angry before. He'd even seen him worried before.

But he hadn't seen that kind of feral desperation since Kate died, and maybe not even then.

Werewolves had special dispensation regarding visiting hours for pack reasons, but the rest of them had to dart in whenever they could. Abby came as often as the director would let her away from the lab. Tim came with offerings of food that were mostly ignored. Ducky came with a worried frown and glances at Gibbs' chart that didn't make anyone feel any better.

And as hours turned to days and Gibbs still didn't wake up, Ziva showed up with concern in her eyes and one hand suspiciously close to where she kept a concealed knife.

Tim worried that Tony would jump to the wrong conclusion and turn on her, but he just gave them both a tense nod and kept pacing.

"What was that all about?" he asked her when they were safely in the parking lot.

Ziva considered the question carefully as if deciding what to tell him. "If Gibbs dies," she said, voice cracking a little, "Tony could take it . . . badly."

"If Gibbs dies, I think we're all going to take it badly. Including the director." Gibbs wouldn't die, though, would he? Gibbs was invincible.

Ziva shook her head impatiently. "Not Tony the man. The wolf. The fey."

Oh. Gibbs was the leader of their little pack. His death would hit Tony hard for more reasons than one. "But if . . . If that happened. Wouldn't someone else just take over as leader?" Tony, presumably, since he was just under Gibbs. Maybe someone new if the director didn't think he was ready for the responsibility.

"Normally, yes. But there is nothing normal about this situation."

On that, at least, he agreed. "When you say take it badly . . . "

She shrugged tightly. "He might lash out at the doctors. He might go after the people who did this. I do not know. I only wish to be prepared."

"If it's the second one, I think I'll join him," Tim muttered.

Ziva flashed him a fierce smile. "Yes. I as well. I never said the knife was for Tony. I only wish to be ready."

Alright. McGee could get behind that.

He'd prefer if he didn't have to, though, so he spent the night scouring the more reputable online forums for healing spells.

* * *

It turned out they didn't need to use his spells to wake Gibbs up, which was good, because most wake up spells required ingredients he didn't have.

Like Gibbs' true love, and that was a subject he really, really didn't want to think about, and the three ex-wives didn't look promising on that front, so it was a good thing Gibbs woke up when he did.

The bad thing was, Gibbs didn't remember them. Or anything else that had happened in the last, oh, fifteen years or so. Tim didn't catch the exact number. He just knew that Gibbs didn't remember Ducky being at NCIS.

He found DiNozzo sitting outside with his head in his hands. Tim threw a quick glance at Gibbs' closed door and sat down hesitantly beside him. "You alright?"

Tony gave a humorless laugh. "He can't remember us."

"Yeah, I know. Ducky called." He bit his lap. "How does that affect . . . you know . . . " He waved his hands in a vague way.

Tony stared down at his hands. "The law runneth forward and back," he muttered.

"What?"

Tony sighed. "Nothing. Just an old poem my mom used to use to try to make sense of my dad. Pack bond runs both ways, McGeek. If the Boss isn't willing to be head of the pack, then he's not head of the pack."

"So does that mean you're taking his place for now?"

Tony laughed again, and the sound was dark enough to send chills down McGee's spine. "If I was a full blooded werewolf, sure."

Right. Conflicting instincts. "The fey half's getting in the way?"

"The fey half's not designed to step up and take charge of anything."

"I've got confidence in you, Tony," he tried.

Tony pushed himself to his feet and started pacing again. His words were barely more than a snarl. "Faith? Oh, that's all right then if you've got faith. Never mind the binding magic that's starting to choke me again, never mind the madness just waiting down the way - "

McGee blinked. "Wait, what?"

Tony turned on him sharply, but he held himself back and some of the anger drained from his form. "It's how the fey monarchs keep control. There's magic wrapped up in every fey's essence demanding that they follow someone. If they don't . . . Well, did I ever tell you what happened to my mother?"

Tim shook his head. He had a bad feeling about where this story was going.

Tony slumped against the wall. "She fell in love with Dad while she was out on Seelie business. Wanted to get married to him but couldn't get permission, so they ran away together. Very romantic, and all that." Tony's eyes darkened. "Except then Mom started losing control of her magic. It started to turn on her. She began to see things that weren't really there. She'd have days she'd hear faerie music when there was none to hear or she'd claw at her skin like there ants crawling under it. She got worse as I got older. Dad tried everything he could think of to help her. Nothing worked."

Tim swallowed hard.

"Then, on one of her good days, while we were at the beach, she looked up suddenly and said that she heard good ol' Oberon calling her. Telling her to come home. And she just - started walking. Straight into the sea." Tony stared straight ahead, jaw twitching, eyes too bright. "To this day I don't know if she really heard him or if she just thought she did. Or if she was trying to go to him or just desperate to get away.'

Tim stared at him with horrified eyes.

"I've got more options than her," Tony finally said quietly. "I don't have to follow one of the fey. But I can't last as long as she did either."

"Okay," McGee said. "Okay. What about - the director, maybe? Could you transfer over to her?"

Tony shrugged tightly. "Not and mean it. Not while Gibbs is still alive. I owe him too much for that."

"Okay," McGee said again, rubbing his eyes. "Okay. I need - I need to do some research on this."

Tony walked over and patted his arm. "You do that, probie. But don't worry about it, okay? I'll be fine. Always have been before."

Fey might not be able to lie, but McGee was pretty sure that he'd just gotten proof that Tony could.

* * *

Franks showed up. According to DiNozzo, he smelled like a cowboy. McGee had no idea what that smelled like, but he was inclined to believe Tony. The man ought to know, after slamming Franks into the wall when the man had shown up without proper ID.

Tim had walked in on Tony, on the brink of transformation, pressing Franks against a wall with a gun against his head. Franks had managed to bring an iron knife up to his throat.

Tim nearly hadn't noticed, his nose had been so deep in his spellbook, but he was glad he had. Franks might think they were at a standoff, but McGee was about ninety-five percent sure DiNozzo wouldn't mind getting his throat slit if it meant taking someone he thought was after Gibbs down with him.

Especially under the present circumstances.

"Uh, Tony, that's Franks. Gibbs used to work with him. The director sent me the information." She'd probably sent it to DiNozzo too, but McGee could believe he hadn't checked it.

"Oh." DiNozzo lowered the gun and backed off as he flashed Franks one of his trademark smiles. "Sorry about that."

Franks didn't smile back, and he kept his knife out. "Who are you, and what's a wolf doing outside my probie's hospital room?"

Tony's eyes darkened. McGee coughed. "Er, I can explain that Mr. Franks. If you'll just step this way . . . ?"

* * *

One crisis got averted, but another was looming. McGee overheard Gibbs and Franks talk about the possibility of Gibbs heading down to Mexico for a while.

He didn't want Gibbs to go. He didn't even want to think about how Abby would break down and cry if Gibbs went. Even Ziva was upset by the idea when he quietly shared it with her.

They didn't tell Tony. McGee was afraid of what the news would do to Tony.

If Gibbs didn't remember, Gibbs would leave.

So McGee would just have to make him remember.

* * *

They'd tried jogging his memory with pictures and stories. They'd had limited success with that, but not enough.

Gibbs had a rough idea who they were now, but he didn't know why it was so important that he stay, and DiNozzo had firmly vetoed telling him.

"He needs to heal however he thinks best," he'd said. "We're not going to get in the way of that."

Sacrifice.

Which, as McGee saw it, made it his duty to do something about it. Something that only he could do.

Something with magic.

* * *

There were wizards who specialized in healings. Even wizards who specialized in memory.

But healings tended to be major workings, so wizards who did that burned out fast and were outrageously expensive to hire. They weren't an option.

But magic could be surprisingly versatile, and McGee was sure he could do it.

Magic was, after all, just a matter of will, and and McGee had never been so determined in his life.

* * *

"There are risks," he explained nervously from Gibbs' bedside. "This isn't my normal area, and I'd never try it if it wasn't so urgent."

Gibbs nodded as if he understood. "But there's an attack coming, and you need my memories to stop it."

That was true, actually, although in all the personal drama of the team, McGee had almost forgotten it. "Right. And while I'm trying to bring those back, I might as well try to get the rest back for you too. It won't add to the risk any. Speaking of the risks, those are - "

Gibbs held up a hand. "I don't care. Do it."

Duty. Willpower. Sacrifice.

McGee's dad would like Gibbs, he realized, but he also had the surprisingly comforting realization that Gibbs would not like Admiral McGee.

Gibbs looked out for his people in a way Admiral McGee had never quite grasped with his family.

If Gibbs was in his right mind, he would have asked what the risks were for McGee.

But Gibbs wasn't in his right mind, and no one else knew he was here, so McGee kept those to himself.

He leaned forward and gripped Gibbs' head between his hands. "Okay. Look at me."

Gibbs' determined eyes hit held his, and McGee took a deep breath and said the words he'd been practicing all night. He wasn't sure what language they were in. He just knew they weren't the Latin that his father had always preferred.

And then McGee was falling into Gibbs' mind, an invasion of privacy that he was pretty sure was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.

* * *

Minds weren't neat libraries to wander through. They weren't houses to put back in order. The books had warned him of that.

One practitioner had compared the experience to an Ancient Egyptian myth in which Ra journeyed through the nightmarish underworld every night in order to bring the sun to the sky. They'd wondered, in fact, if the myth had been inspired by an ancient practitioner describing their experiences and translating the horrors they saw into the monsters Ra supposedly fought.

If that was the case, then McGee was pretty sure that ancient practitioner had toned down the story to make it more appropriate for children because this - This made descriptions of the underworld look like a vacation.

But he marched forward grimly, creating new paths to old memories, until he was sure that he had done enough.

* * *

McGee fell back into himself. He felt awful. His head was pounding, and his mouth felt like something had died in it.

He glanced down at the gasping man on the bed. Good grief, was that the man he'd expended so much of himself to help? He hardly looked worth the effort. He should have just let him go off to Mexico. Then McGee would have gotten a long overdue promotion to Senior Field Agent and been one step closer to where he belonged: the top.

For that matter, that half-breed probably would have died pretty soon after Gibbs left, so he might could have jumped to Senior Agent within a month or two. It really was a wasted opportunity.

Clearly, though, he had felt doing this was important. Just because he couldn't remember why at the moment didn't mean he had been wrong. In fact, the idea of him being wrong was almost laughable; he was almost never wrong. His reasoning would come back to him eventually, he was sure, and even if it didn't . . . Well, he'd live far longer than this pathetic man anyway. His magic had seen to that. If he had to wait a few years longer, what was that to him?

"McGee," Gibbs said in sudden recognition.

"Finally remembered me, have you?" He looked around for some water. There were paper cups, but the pitcher was empty. Ah, well. He summoned some out of humidity in the air and drained the cup.

There was a look in his employer's eyes that he didn't recognize. "McGee, are you alright?"

"Headache," he said shortly. "I suppose I should call the director in to get your statement about the upcoming attack."

"Alright," Gibbs said quietly.

McGee was almost out of the room when Gibbs called out again.

"Tim!"

He stopped and glanced back impatiently. "What?"

"Thank you."

He accepted his due with a dismissive wave and went to call the director.

* * *

 **A/N: This was supposed to be one chapter, but my laptop doesn't like documents that are nearly 10,000 words long, so I've split it up into two parts.**


	5. McGee II: The Road Back from Endor

Dealing with witnesses was more frustrating than he remembered. The crying ones were irritating, and the ones that weren't bawling their eyes out were difficult to read. Were they sad? Angry? Lying? He had no idea. It was like they were speaking a language that he had never learned, and he hated that feeling of ignorance.

His teammates were bewildering and infuriating in equal measure. The vampire had grabbed him into a tight hug the first time he saw her, and he shouted a spell to throw her across the room before he realized it wasn't an attack.

Abby bounced off the wall and stared at him with a trembling lip. "Timmy?"

The flashcards he'd been studying helped him identify the look as "on the verge of tears," which was ridiculous since vampires couldn't cry. "McGee," he corrected her, "and my . . . apologies. I overreacted."

"Give him some time, Abbs," Gibbs advised quietly from behind him, and he had to resist the urge not to jump. When had Gibbs gotten here?

That was far from the only incident. Tony was being far more courteous than memory had suggested he would be, but the looks Tony kept shooting him that Ziva had identified as "guilty" made no sense. He didn't much care, though, until one such look meant that DiNozzo wasn't looking where he was going when they were making their way down a muddy hill with the end result that they both ended up skidding down it until they were plastered with cold, slick mud.

Tony winced, putting a hand to his head. "Ouch." He glanced at McGee. "You alright there?"

McGee pushed himself to his feet and stared down at him coldly. "You'd think that if Gibbs was going to keep a dog, he'd at least get a useful one." He ignored Tony's flinch and stalked off. A muttered word had his clothes clean again, but the foul mood that had penetrated his cold reason persisted for the rest of the day.

He left the wolf to deal with the filth, although he regretted that a little when the mud got all over the van's seats and Tony developed an irritating cough.

Tony ended up missing two days of work. An odd emotion McGee couldn't quite identify bothered him until Tony got back.

* * *

He overheard Ziva telling Tony, "He is like one of those hunters that has seen too much and now cares for nothing but the hunt."

"He wouldn't be if I had kept my mouth shut and hadn't worried him," Tony said back with more weariness than McGee had ever heard from him. "He'll get better. Just give him some time."

"And if he does not?"

"He will," Gibbs said firmly.

McGee thought about announcing his presence, but he ended up just walking away.

* * *

There were many occasions for small workings that he couldn't believe he hadn't taken advantage of before, but no major workings were called for in the aftermath of Gibbs' memory loss. McGee started to feel . . . different.

He found the time to look at a manuscript he'd been working on before he'd dove into Gibbs' mind. It was almost funny to look at it now; the main character was a wizard who was afraid he'd lose himself in his magic. McGee wasn't sure what the character was so afraid of. As long as he didn't break the covenant, he'd be fine.

But he was so surprised by the reminder of how much emotion was described in each of the characters. He'd forgotten how much better at reading emotions he used to be.

Of course, maybe he hadn't been. Maybe he'd just been making it up. He couldn't quite remember.

He showed it to Abby, the most emotional person he knew, in an effort to check. "Is this right?" he asked.

Her lip had trembled again as she leafed through it. "Oh, Timmy."

"The emotions, are they right?" He needed an answer.

She nodded shakily. "Some of your facts aren't - Caffeine interacts with vampires a little differently than with most species, and I'm not sure Tony would approve of you writing about his weaknesses like that - but you got the feelings right." Her fangs worried at her lower lip, and she spread her arms out. "Hug?"

He didn't entirely get the appeal, but he gave her one anyway.

It felt better than he was expecting.

By that point, he'd already discovered that his use of the word pathetic in relation to Gibbs was a big mistake. Within a month or two, some of his other thoughts from that first day were bothering him too.

He'd be a better Senior Field Agent than Tony, true, but wishing the man dead was another matter entirely. No, he had hundreds of years to live. He didn't mind waiting a few more.

* * *

Six months in, he started piecing together some of the other things. The team smoothing down feathers that he'd ruffled. Ziva, Tony, and Abby going out of their way to try and keep him happy. Gibbs quietly trying to keep him from using more magic. Ducky's not at all subtle lectures on the dangers of magic. Palmer's wide eyed anxiety whenever McGee got too close, but the way he insisted on sticking around and trying to be friendly anyway.

They were trying to help.

He still didn't feel right. He still couldn't tell when Tony's grins were real and when they were for show. Still couldn't tell when Ziva really didn't get a local idiom and when she was faking it for humor or to get someone to underestimate her. He still felt distant and irritable.

But he knew what was wrong now. He knew why he'd done what he had. He knew he didn't regret it.

And he knew he wanted things back the way they were.

He approached the team members one by one with the same message. "I, um, think I owe you an apology."

To which Ziva said, "Do not worry about it. I am glad to have you back."

And Palmer said, "Oh, um, you're fine!"

And Ducky said, "It's good to see you feeling better, my boy."

And Gibbs said, "Don't apologize. It's a sign of weakness." He smiled when he said it, though.

Abby didn't say anything. She just sprang at him with a hug.

Tony was different. Tony said, "Why'd you do it?"

"What, apologize?"

Tony just looked at him. "You know what I meant, McGoo."

It was the first time Tony had used a nickname on him in months. He wanted to fidget uncomfortably, but he forced himself to stay still and confident. These past few months had been good for that at least.

There were a lot of answers to that question. He could say he had done it for the case, but they both knew that would be a lie. He could say he had done it for Gibbs, and that would be true, or at least partially true. Tony could live with that answer, he was sure, and he'd be smart enough not to tell it to Gibbs, who couldn't.

He could say he had done it for Tony, but he didn't want to see the look in Tony's eyes if he did.

And that answer would only be partially true anyway.

"I did it for the pack," he said. "For all of us. We need Gibbs, and Gibbs needs us."

Tony nodded and clapped him on the back. "Welcome back, McGeek."

That was an answer Tony could accept, after all. A sacrifice for the greater good of the pack. A duty to do what none of the rest of them could.

An answer they could all accept. Even better, it was the truth.

* * *

When Sarah showed up two months after that with blood streaming down her hands, McGee's first thought was, _She broke the covenant._

The blood washed off, though, and there were only scars on her hands, not fresh wounds.

McGee stared down at her hands and remembered the day he'd bandaged them. Her face had been covered with angry tears, and she'd kept saying, "I hate him, I hate him, why doesn't Mom just leave him, I hate him." He'd kept her calm and quiet, because instead of a screaming match, his parents had descended into icy silence.

He'd never hated their father. He wasn't sure he had it in him to get that angry without magic poisoning his mind. Sarah had always burned hotter than him.

Maybe hot enough to kill.

Except - She hadn't broken the covenant. That much was clear. Self-defense, then? Defense of someone else? Or did the blood belong to someone not entirely human?

"It could be animal blood," Sarah protested when she saw the look on his face.

"That's almost worse! What would you have been doing with animal blood except blood magic?"

Sarah winced. Blood magic didn't break the covenant, but it was the kind of nasty that even their father hadn't wanted to deal with except when it came time for contracts. "No! The only blood magic I know about is that stupid covenant knife."

"Okay," he said, taking a deep breath. "Okay, we need to track where the blood came from. That'll give us a better idea what happened."

"Okay," she whispered. "Who's doing it? You or me?"

That kind of tracking wasn't a major working, but it wasn't exactly minor either. He hesitated, torn between protecting his sister and keeping his head clear so that he could help her.

Practicality won out. "You'd better do it," he finally said. "You've got a better head for magic and a stronger connection to the blood."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And you're still coming down off a big spell."

"That too," he admitted. "I'll supervise in case we need this as evidence."

She did the work quickly. She'd always had more of a talent for magic than him, despite how much she hated it.

When she was done, a blood red line traced a path from his apartment to her school's grounds. A faint blue mark travelled with it.

"Cut the spell," he said urgently. "Sarah, cut the spell now!"

She slashed her hand through the air and frowned at him. "What was that about?"

He slumped into his chair. "That blue mark means the blood belongs to someone in the Navy."

She paled even further than she'd been all night but said, "So?"

"So, the Navy has spells that make sure they know whenever someone tries to track one of their people."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "Did I cut it in time?"

He didn't know. There was no way to know. But he had a bad feeling that the answer wasn't going to be in their favor. "We can't risk it. We have to call Gibbs."

"What? No!" She grabbed his arm. "We don't know what happened yet! What if . . . "

"Sarah, listen to me. You're not in breach of the covenant yet or you'd be bleeding already, but if the Navy decides the tracking attempt was hostile, you will be. We have to report this before it gets to that point."

Sarah looked fearfully at her hands and gave in. "Fine. But I'm grabbing my English book first. I can study while you drive."

He stared at her in incomprehension but said, "Fine."

He put his phone on speaker and called Gibbs while they drove.

"Boss, I'm sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but we've got a big problem."

Judging by how quickly Gibbs had picked up the phone and the lack of roughness in his voice, he doubted Gibbs had been sleep despite the late hour. "Talk to me, McGee."

"I think my sister might have accidentally broken the covenant."

"Tim," Sarah whimpered.

He glanced over and saw the liquid seeping out onto her textbook. He gulped. "Scratch that, Boss. I _know_ my sister accidentally broke the covenant. She did a tracking spell without realizing it was on someone from the Navy."

"I'll make some calls," Gibbs said immediately. "Get them to postpone invoking the magic. Why was she using a tracking spell?"

McGee was already breathing a little easier. Gibbs hadn't even known he had a sister before tonight, but he was already working to make things better. "It's complicated. Can I explain when I get there?"

"Do what you need to do." The call cut out.

McGee looked over at Sarah. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was silently crying. He reached over with one hand and rubbed her back. "Hey. It'll be alright. Gibbs will take care of it."

If McGee was sure of anything, he was sure of that.

* * *

The case was long and difficult. His sister's scattered memory didn't help things.

"I could go in and try to clear it up," he offered in desperation.

"Tim, no," she said instantly. "That's a major working."

"I've done it before."

"Is that what you're recovering from? Tim, if you did another one right now, you might never come back. No!"

Gibbs poked his head into the interrogation room. "I'm with her," he said, jerking his head toward Sarah. "Especially since Abby has news."

Abby bounced into the room. "So I tasted the blood sample you gave me."

Sarah leaned back. "You _what_?"

"It's a valid forensic technique if it's performed by someone properly certified and if there's enough for other experts to verify," Tim assured her.

"Which I am, and there is. And the result is - Drumroll, please - "

"Abby!"

"Right, sorry, Gibbs. Sarah, you were drugged."

"I was? But those other tests you ran - "

Abby waved a hand. "Not sensitive enough. I, on other hand, am, and I was inspired by what I tasted to track down another sample in a bit of vomit left in the taxi cab." She wrinkled her nose. "Which was unpleasant, but it confirmed my results. Working off the assumption that you were dosed at the food court, Ziva and Tony used the security footage to trace the guilty party, and now we just gotta go pick 'em up!"

* * *

They got the girl and cleared the case up. Sarah had been trying to stop the victim's bleeding, not hurt him.

That didn't stop Sarah from staring at her hands like they possessed the secret to life.

"I think I'm going to get my magic blocked," she told Tim abruptly as he drove her back to her dorm.

He slammed on the brakes. "What? You know what the side effects to that are!"

"Just for a month or two so I can break the habit of using it." She was still looking at her hands. "If I don't use it at all, I won't run the risk of the covenant being turned on me again."

Tim slowly started the car again. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I don't want this to ever happen again."

"The odds of someone drugging your peanut butter again are so low as to be ridiculous."

"You know what I meant."

He did.

"Maybe you should try it, Tim."

He shook his head. "I'm happy for you. I am. But you haven't seen what it's like with NCIS. They need people like me."

"Just think about it, okay?"

He nodded. He didn't think he could avoid thinking about it if he tried.

* * *

Years passed. He kept his balance on the high wire that was wizardry. He was happy.

Then his father showed up.

His father was exactly as he remembered him. Cold. Arrogant. What little compassion ha had left was poured into the staff around him instead of what family he had left.

Tim couldn't think of anyone he would have wanted to embroiled in a case less.

His father took one look at Tim's relatively easy manner with his teammate and his lip curled. "I see you haven't kept up with your studies, Tim." He turned to Gibbs, who'd been interrogating him. "Tim never had any real head for magic. He's got the talent coming out of his ears, but he lacks the willpower to really use it. One big spell and he thinks he's the next Mordred."

"Yeah, well, it seems to be the curse of this family," Tim said bitterly. "I can't hold my magic, Sarah can't hold her drink, and you can't hold on to your family."

His father sighed and shook his head. "This is all your mother's fault, you know. She was always so unreasonable about you and Sarah becoming productive members of society. It gave you strange ideas."

"Sarah's a teacher now," McGee told him tightly. "She's helping inner city kids. She hasn't used magic in years."

For the first time, his father looked disturbed. Gibbs leaped on the opportunity.

Later, Gibbs pulled him aside. "You alright?"

"I will be."

Gibbs squeezed his shoulder. "Whatever your father thinks, you're doing good work, Tim."

The words filled an old empty space inside him.

* * *

They solved the case. McGee almost wished they hadn't.

His father was cursed. Dark magic was eating him from the inside out.

"I can resist its urgings, but the covenant will realize the contagion within a year," his father said calmly. "Sooner, probably, since it came out in the course of the case. Once the covenant recognizes the danger, it won't take long for it to bleed me dry."

"Do the others know?" Tim asked. His voice sounded strangely distant.

His father shook his head. "I suppose I should tell them. I wouldn't like them to think I broke the covenant of my own will."

"You could stay with me. If you wanted," McGee said haltingly. "We could try to find something more to be done."

"I would have to give up magic," his father said. "I have given up too much to do that now." His father patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "Perhaps it is not such a waste that you and your sister chose not to fully embrace your gifts after all."

High Wizard McGee was reported dead three months later. The announcement said only that it had been in the course of duty. Tim had to be the one to tell his mother and sister why.

* * *

Ziva left. Bishop came.

McGee updated his lists of magic and technology and wondered if maybe he was strong enough now to what he couldn't then.

* * *

Delilah was wonderful. He fell head over heels in love with her and the way she made the world seem real and present instead of distant and full of holes.

Sitting with her in the bright lights of a restaurant, he could forget the shadows that lurked waiting in the world.

And then the shadows took her, and by the time he got her back, her back was broken and she would never walk again.

"I can fix it," he told her. He'd stayed up till the early hours of the morning for weeks, and he was finally confident that he could do the spell. "I can help you walk again."

She read through the papers he'd gathered for her perusal, and it didn't take long for her forehead to crease with a frown. "Tim, this is a major working. What kind of effect would it have on you?"

"I can handle it," he insisted.

"If I called Sarah and asked for a second opinion, would she say the same thing?" she challenged.

"Yes," he said instantly.

"You're lying."

Delilah was pure human, but she could spot a lie faster than some truth seers he knew.

"It would have a cost," he admitted. "But I'd get over it eventually, and it would be worth it."

"If I could be sure you'd come down from the magic high, maybe it would be," she admitted. "But what if you didn't? There are never any guarantees, Tim. What if you broke the covenant while your mind was still messed up? What if someone on your team got hurt because you weren't all there? I'd never forgive myself."

"It's my choice," he told her.

She set her jaw. "Offering was your choice. Accepting is mine. And I'm turning you down. We can save up for a healer if we think the money's worth it, but you're not doing it."

"The money is definitely worth it," he told her.

The quiet donations from the rest of the team said that they agreed.

* * *

Delilah turning his offer down just made the persistent question louder.

Was his magic worth it?

The sudden increases in Challenges he participated in after Gibbs had to start being more careful said _yes._

The fact that Gibbs, perfectly human Gibbs, had fought so well for so long said _no_. Franks similarly successful career said no. Ziva's career as a hunter said no. Ducky's steely survival in the face of incredible odds and a very long life said no.

As he was now, he wasn't prepared to just drop it. But if he prepared - If he got stronger -

Maybe.

* * *

Gibbs accepted his request for more hand to hand lessons with no questions. Tony also agreed to his request, although he had _lots_ of questions. Tim dodged most of them, but the thoughtful look Tony got said that the former detective had pieced some of it together.

"Ziva's going to be in town for a visit," he said casually. "Why don't you ask her for some pointers with knives?"

Tim took him up on that.

* * *

A lot of anti-magic websites described it as a drug. Tim wasn't quite sure he agreed with that as most illegal drugs were supposed to make you feel _good,_ but he thought it might be best to consult with a doctor about quitting it all the same.

And by doctor, of course, he meant Ducky.

Ducky listened to his explanation without judgement before nodding approvingly. "I see. Well, let's take a look at you then, shall we, my boy? Magic has a tendency to leave its mark."

A few blood tests, a brain scan done by a friend of Ducky's at the hospital, and a curious instrument being held to his heart later, Ducky had some answers for him.

"Prolonged magic use can have permanent effects on the structure of the brain," Ducky informed him. "Because you started during your formative years, it has indeed had some effects there, but nothing you're not already aware of and living with. It will make quitting harder, but I can monitor you if you wish to get a block for a few months to make quitting 'cold turkey' as they say, easier. You know, the origins of the phrase are really quite interesting - "

"Ducky."

"Ah, yes. There are a few more questions to answer before we can get to that. The other major concern, of course, is that of your lifespan. Wizards, like most of magic's playthings, are inclined to live forever. Combat or contract cut short their lives, not old age. Even after you desist your usage of magic, it will linger in your blood and prolong your lifespan. How much it will is difficult to say. I, for instance, have lingered for a few centuries now."

McGee blinked. "Wait. You're an ex-wizard?"

Ducky looked at him in surprise. "Oh, yes."

"Does Gibbs know?"

Ducky snorted. "I should think so, after all the trouble we've gotten into together. Really, Timothy, I'm not sure why you're so surprised."

Thinking back on some of the books he'd seen Ducky with, he wasn't sure why he was surprised either. Maybe it was because the man so clearly lacked the arrogant apathy that marked older wizards.

"In any case, I doubt you'll last quite so long. I practiced magic for quite a considerable length of time and in far greater quantities than you have. Still, you, Anthony, and Eleanor could quite easily still be working together a century from now. Oh, and dear Abigail and Palmer, of course. I suspect I'll have shuffled off this mortal coil by then, but you never know."

McGee tried to wrap his mind around this and quickly decided he'd rather not.

"I suspect you'll want to have a desk job by then, though," Ducky mused.

That didn't really make it any better.

"Was it worth it?" he asked. "Giving it up?"

"Oh, yes. Of course, at the time I thought using the magic was worth it too, but when my mother gave it up, I felt obligated to follow. I still had a bit loyalty left in me, you see. The Sidhe Wars had hammered in the importance of that."

"You fought in the Sidhe Wars?" Tim yelped. "Those were thousands of years ago!"

"Well, perhaps I've lingered for more than a few centuries, at that," Ducky conceded. "You must understand, time gets a little muddled after a while." He patted McGee on the shoulder. "Does that tell you what you need to know, my boy?"

"I think so," he said weakly. "Ah. Do you have any recommendations on where to get that block?"

* * *

The block made everything stand out with bright, painful sharpness, and it threw his emotions for a sickening loop.

The good news was, the pain drove him to finish his book so that he'd have a distraction in the late hours of the night. Sales from its publication pushed them over the edge of what they needed to get an appointment with a healer.

Delilah rolled herself into the hospital.

She walked back out.

* * *

"Huh," Tony said the day the block went off.

"What?" McGee asked defensively.

"I can smell you now. You know, Abby got it pretty close. Take out the magic, add Delilah's perfume . . . Speaking of which, guess you won't need your own perfume anymore."

"It wasn't perfume!"

* * *

Getting married to Delilah was like a dream. Finding out she was pregnant a year later was even more so.

He announced the news still in a daze. Abby's squeals and Palmer's congratulations weren't unexpected, but he hadn't quite anticipated the full warmth of Gibbs' smile, or the quiet longing in Bishop's eyes.

He definitely hadn't anticipated Tony whooping, "New younglings for the pack!"

"One young- baby. _One_ baby," he stressed. "And he - or she - isn't joining NCIS."

Tony threw an arm around his shoulder. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Palmer patted him consolingly on the back. "Just think of it as free babysitting."

Looking around at the squad room, McGee figured out pretty quick that Tony wasn't the only one happy to help.

* * *

Six months later, he looked down at a beautiful baby girl while the nurse bustled into the room with the results of the quick scan they'd run.

"Congratulations," she told him and Delilah in a bubbling voice. "Your child has a high potential to learn magic!"

McGee looked at Delilah. They had discussed this possibility. She gave a firm nod.

McGee took the papers from the nurse and efficiently ripped them to shreds.

* * *

 **A/N: Top quote from Rudyard Kipling's "En-Dor;" Tony's quote from his "The Law of the Jungle." The story of Endor can be found in 1 Samuel 28 if memory serves. If you're curious about how it relates to witchcraft, go look it up.**

 **This chapter was already planned before I got the reviews, but I did adjust some of the points to try and answer an anon's questions. The next planned chapter will deal with Bishop. After that, we'll see what's next.**


	6. Bishop: Starvation Cheap

**A/N: Warnings for body horror, disturbing imagery, attempted suicide, and cannibalism. This is going to be a dark one, folks.**

 **New publishing plans: I've got an arc for Ziva now, so hopefully I'll get that up tomorrow. After that, I'll try to post a relatively fluffy concluding piece that will be as far forward in the timeline as this thing's going to go. I've gotten prompts for some episode arcs that I overlooked and that won't fit well with Bishop and Ziva's sections, so after the official end, I'd like to go back and do some bonus chapters for those. So far, the plan is to hit Senior, the plague, DiNozzo being separated from the pack, and maybe something about him getting a job offer from elsewhere. Other suggestions are welcome.**

 **Quote and title both from Kipling's "Tommy."**

* * *

 _"There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind." - Rudyard Kipling, "Tommy."_

* * *

She was prepared for the potential consequences when she joined the NSA. She could be targeted by someone who wanted her access to critical information. Shapeshifters might try to replace her, the fey's addiction to information might persuade them to come after her, and regular old human spies might think she had information they wanted. She and Jake had passwords to check the other was who they said they were, the best security system they could afford, and they kept up to date with their combat training. They did everything right. When you were human in their line of work, you had to.

Bishop had prepared herself for the possibility that doing everything right might not be enough. Someday, she might know something - or people might _think_ she knew something - so critical that they were willing to make the effort to overcome their protections.

She was less mentally prepared for the idea that she might be snatched off the street not because of her clearance level, but because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A woman alone with her hands full of groceries. She'd known better, but she had been in a hurry, and she hadn't been working on anything particularly dangerous lately. She had thought she could risk it.

She had been wrong.

* * *

One hundred and twenty-five thousand. That was how many people went missing in the United States each year.

Of those, Bishop reminded herself firmly, over eighty percent were eventually found.

She tried not to think about the statistics on how many were found alive. Those weren't nearly as promising.

Nothing about this set-up was promising. Not the stacked cages in the dark, cavernous room, one of which she'd woken up in. Not the fanatic gleam in the eyes of the man who'd been directing the thugs who grabbed her. Not the fact that she'd been grabbed at the start of a long weekend while Jake was away on a trip, meaning that it could be days until someone noticed she was missing. Especially not the fact that she hadn't had the chance to eat dinner when they grabbed her, and now her stomach was definitely complaining.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and scooted to the back of the cage. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly. Her knuckles stung at the movement.

She vividly remembered the look on the leader's face when she'd temporarily managed to break away from his thugs and had slugged him in the face.

Okay. Maybe _one_ thing was promising.

* * *

Her watch informed it had been three hours when the thugs walked in with a struggling man and threw him into the cage next to hers.

"Hey! What's going on? What do you want?" Bishop demanded.

The men slid something between the bars of both of their cages and walked out.

The new man flinched and the wet _thunk_ sound. Bishop scooted forward a little and shone her watch's light on it. Her nose wrinkled. "Ew. Raw meat." She was hungry, but she wasn't _that_ hungry. "What did you get?"

The man took a deep breath and went to check. He had a small penlight on his keychain. That might come in handy. "Same." He poked a shaking hand through the bars. "Petty Officer Lawless, ma'am."

She shook his hand, the ridiculousness of the situation forcing her to hold back a giggle. "Ellie Bishop. NSA."

Her watch's light went out sending the room plummeting into darkness. It didn't stop her from hearing Lawless's sharp intake of breath. "Any idea why we're here?"

"Nope. Any cool superhuman abilities that'll get us out of here?"

He huffed a laugh. "Afraid not. Unless you count my iron stomach."

She poked the meat. "Iron enough to risk parasites?"

"Not quite yet," he admitted. "I don't think vomiting will add much to the atmosphere."

She wasn't glad the petty officer had gotten grabbed, but it felt a little better not to be alone.

* * *

The schedule wasn't precise. Bishop's best guess was that the thugs were being sent further afield to avoid a panic over a rash of missing people from one area, but there were multiple teams bringing people in. When they came, they always brought something for the cages. Unfortunately, that something was always either water bottles or meat.

They still couldn't figure out why they had even been grabbed. The thugs weren't talking, they hadn't seen the boss again, and she couldn't figure out any sort of pattern from the people that were brought in. They weren't all involved in the government, they weren't people that wouldn't be missed, they weren't high profile ransom targets, and they didn't fit any ritual sacrifice criteria that she'd ever heard of.

"If they were just grabbing people to grab them, why not go after homeless people?" Bishop muttered when they brought the latest man in, an imposing man in an impeccable business suit. "For that matter, why not pick someone easier to take down? Nearly everyone they've picked has been physically imposing." With a few obvious exceptions, herself being among that number.

"What if they want people that are physically imposing?" Lawless suggested quietly. "They could be trying to set up some kind of fight ring."

"Why choose me then? Or Rachel? Or Sam?" Rachel was a tiny math professor that kept spitting Spanish curses at their captors. Sam was some kind of violin prodigy that had been studying at the same university.

"From what you've told me, you're not a bad fighter," Lawless pointed out. "Maybe they knew that somehow. Or maybe . . . "

Bishop's mind was dancing over the weaker victims she'd just listed. "Or maybe it's not just about brawn," she breathed. "Maybe they want brains too."

"Weird qualification for a fight ring," he pointed out.

"We don't know that it's a fight ring," she countered. Her stomach growled and she gave a frustrated sigh. "If I could just get some food, maybe I could put this together. I food associate, my brain's not functioning right without it."

"There's always the meat," someone called dryly from the darkness to her left.

"The last time I ate a steak that wasn't well done, I was sick for a week," Bishop called back. "I think I'll hold off a little longer." Although she wasn't sure how long "a little longer" could be. It had been two days now.

"I don't think I can," Lawless admitted. "Time to test out the iron stomach." He clicked on his pen light and picked up the square of meat he'd been handed.

Bishop winced. "Good luck."

Lawless took a cautious bite and then tore through the rest. "Guess I was hungrier than I thought," he said sheepishly when he'd finished. "It didn't even taste that bad."

Bishop shuddered.

"I'm with you," someone to her lower left said. "I'm gonna go for it." One or two others followed suit.

"Not me," Bishop repeated.

Not yet.

* * *

Lawless woke her from a fitful nap with a ragged whisper a few hours later. "Bishop? You awake?"

She sat up and banged her head on the roof of the cage. "Ouch! Yeah. What do you need?"

"I think eating earlier just woke my stomach up. I'm starving. I don't suppose . . . " He sounded vaguely ashamed of himself.

"Oh! Yeah, sure, I'm not going to eat it," she assured him. She shoved the meat through the bars with two fingers. "Bon appetit."

"Thanks," he muttered before tearing into it.

She winced at the slightly sickening noise and went back to sleep.

* * *

She woke up again to the sound of a growl and her cage rattling. Her eyes flew open. "Lawless?" The growling was coming from his side of her cage. "You ok?"

The growling intensified. Was he having a nightmare?

She pressed the button on her watch for the light and twisted her wrist so it would shine into his cage.

Lawless's face was pressed up against the side of her cage. The little fat there had been in his face had been sucked out until there was nothing but bone and muscle. The skin that should have covered it was gone.

The muscle on the rest of his body had bulked up, except around the stomach. His uniform hung loose from his ribs. His hands, now too big to reach all the way through the bars, gripped them instead and rattled the cage. His eyes were black pits in his head.

Bishop screamed.

* * *

When she could think again, she was pressed on the far side of the cage from him, and the noise hadn't stopped. Her scream had woken the others up, and a chorus of growls and shrieks had sprung up immediately.

Bishop's hands were pressed over her mouth, and she couldn't quite seem to control her breathing.

She'd seen pictures like that before in her papers.

Wendigo. Lawless was a wendigo now.

That had been human meat.

* * *

Lawless had been a pretty big man, and the transformation had made his muscles even larger. No matter how he tried, he could never get through the bars to grab her.

Judging by some of the sounds she heard, she thought some of the wendigoes must have had smaller hands.

* * *

She kept her eyes tight shut, and her hands over her ears, and prayed her thanks that the other cage next to her was empty.

"My name is Ellie Bishop," she said in a shaking voice. "I work for the NSA. My husband's name is Jake. I will get out of here."

Her stomach growled. The wendigo that had once been Lawless snarled beside her.

Tears leaked out of her eyes. "My name is Ellie Bishop. I work for the NSA. I will see my husband again. I will get out of here."

Her watch gave a beep to indicate the hour and then a longer warning trill to caution her that its battery was dying.

"I will get out of here. I will get out of here. I will get out of here . . . "

One of the wendigoes was still eating. She could hear it.

"I will get out of here. Please, someone let me out of here."

* * *

The wendigoes snarled when the door open and a square of light blazed into the room. Bishop's heart leapt.

It was the leader and an honor guard of thugs.

Everything Bishop had planned to say caught in her throat.

The leader walked around to each of the cages, nodding as if well pleased. He stayed well out of reach of the bars. He stopped in front of hers. "Well, well, well. It looks like we've got a leader for our new army."

"Army?" she whispered.

The leader spread his arms to indicate the snarling mass around them. "The army of the apocalypse. I present to you: Starvation."

"You're mad," she whispered hoarsely. "And you're even more mad if you think I'll be leading them anywhere."

"Ah, but you see they've all quite lost their wits," he said, as if it were merely a question of explaining the matter. "You'll still have them."

"Still?" Still implied that there would be a change, and no matter how empty her stomach was, that wasn't going to happen. "I'm not eating anything you give me! I'm not letting you kill me like you killed them!"

"I assure you, they're very much alive. And you don't have to eat a thing, my dear. There are two ways to make a wendigo, you know, and the second is the reason I haven't visited more often."

She wracked her exhausted brain. "You can eat human flesh," she said, hands shaking, "or . . . "

"Or you can spend too much time in the wrong company." The man smiled at her complacently. "I'll come check on you in a few days, my dear. I'm sure you'll be ready to be unleashed on Washington by then."

Or prolonged proximity to multiple wendigoes.

The man led his thugs away.

"No! Let me out of here! Let me out!"

The door closed.

* * *

Her stomach never stopped growling now. It was like a beast inside her.

She couldn't see her body, but she could feel her arms. Feel the last reserves of fat disappear. Feel the muscle grow lean and tough when she wrapped a hand around one wrist. She could feel the way her clothes hung off her frame.

"I want to go home," she whimpered.

Growls answered her.

She woke up from a restless nap to a raging hunger that made her wonder if any part of her clothes were edible. She looked down at them out of habit, and realized that she could see a bit, dimly.

She reached up to touch her eyes. They had sunk into her head.

She squeezed her eyes shut and stubbornly condemned herself to darkness. "My name is Ellie Bishop. I'm going to go home."

* * *

It was NCIS that kicked the door down. They were looking for their missing Petty Officer. They had to wait and call for backup when they found what was inside.

Bishop waited in her cage. "My name is Ellie Bishop. I work for the NSA. I want to go home. My name is Ellie Bishop. I work for the NSA . . . "

People with special equipment finally came and led her away. She heard bullets echoing behind her as they walked off.

One of the people with her tried to cover the sound with a stream of soothing information. "We've caught the man that did this. We're going to help you. You're going to be alright."

At one point, he said the date.

It had been just over a week since she got caught.

* * *

Therapy. Doctor's visits. Counseling to help her "transition."

"Since you're a proximity wendigo, you don't face the sanctions the others did."

By sanctions, she was pretty sure the counselor meant "bullets."

"You also don't have to fear turning anyone by prolonged exposure to them. Other differences include your appearance, which, as I'm sure you've noticed, is still more or less human."

She nodded dully. "How much do I have to eat to make the hunger go away?"

The counselor winced slightly. "It won't."

* * *

She couldn't remember much of the week she was gone. Just flashes. The therapist said she'd repressed the memories.

She'd looked up accounts of other transformations. She decided not to try to recover them.

* * *

Jake filed for the divorce on the grounds that she was no longer human.

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. My husband's name is Jake. I want to go home._

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. I'm unmarried. I want to go home._

 _I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home._

She went home to her parents. They didn't even flinch as they opened their arms for a hug.

* * *

When she got back from her leave, her job at the NSA hadn't changed, but her budget had. She got the cheapest apartment she could, cheapest _everything_ she could, and used the rest of her money on food. She could trick her stomach into thinking it was less hungry if she had something in her mouth.

Ramen noodles. Eggs. The free saltines in the break room. Soup. Anything. Everything.

Just no meat.

* * *

The problem with the NSA was partially that she kept running into Jake and partially that the people there had known her as she was before, and she couldn't . . . deal with that. Not on top of everything else. Flynn was the only one who treated her halfway normal, and he got further in her good books by bringing her gifts of homemade food and vending machine offerings.

Cookies. Cake. Sandwiches. Onion rings. Brownies. Chips. Candy.

She munched her way through it and used the associations to file her memories away.

* * *

Once Flynn was dead, the decision to move to NCIS made sense. They hadn't known her before. The work presented a challenge. And she felt safe there, in a way she didn't elsewhere.

Gibbs' team wasn't the one that had brought her home - that had been led by a woman nicknamed EJ - but Gibbs' team welcomed her with open arms, and that was good enough for her.

* * *

She followed Gibbs' orders and brought in enough food to share, a move that might have made her stomach growl even louder if the others hadn't done the same.

Lab baked treats from Abby. Pizza. Donuts. Thai. Chinese. Italian. Bakery goods.

She could never get enough, but somehow she got closer.

* * *

Her excuse for her Challenges was always that she was hungry, and it was always true. People tended to take one look at the word "wendigo" and accept that excuse.

Which was silly of them, really. If they'd checked the autopsy report, they'd have found out there was never a bite mark on them.

Still, when they didn't want Gibbs to have to fight their opponent, and the others couldn't think of an excuse to take his place, hers worked perfectly well.

* * *

She didn't need detailed memories of being locked in a dark room to instinctively know she didn't like it.

This one, at least, was more of a basement than anything, and there were no cages in it. Just a half empty pack of water bottles, a few power bars, and a sleeping bag from where their suspect had been camping out. There was even a working light fixture.

Unfortunately, the suspect had managed to set a trap for them with the end result that they were somewhere on the loose out there, and they were locked in here.

And judging by the scraping noises they'd heard, he'd hidden the trapdoor to the basement before he left.

Gibbs finally gave up on trying to push the door up and jumped down from the ladder. "Your turn to give it a shot."

Bishop climbed up and heaved with all her strength. She grimaced. "Nothing."

Gibbs paced around the confines of the basement, taking stock of what they had. "We'll need to keep an ear out. When someone comes looking, we might need to make some noise."

"They will know to come looking here, won't they?" Bishop said hesitantly. "Only, we didn't know we'd be coming out here until we talked to the woman at the gas station, and with the cell service so bad, we couldn't call it in."

"They'll know to head to the gas station, and they can take it from there," he said firmly. "Here." He tossed her one of the power bars.

She grabbed it automatically and had it halfway out of the wrapper before she finally did an actual count of how many of the things they had. Three. "We each get one and a half?" she guessed.

Gibbs shook his head. "Never cared for the things. You can have 'em."

She started to protest before she remembered that she was a wendigo trapped in a small room with very limited sources of food for an indefinite period of time. Three power bars wouldn't make much difference in how long Gibbs could stave off starvation. They might make a difference in how long she could hold on.

She slowly put the bar back into the wrapper. "I can wait a little longer."

Gibbs nodded. "Tell me when you need the next one."

* * *

They made sure at least one of them was awake at all times so that they would be ready when someone came looking.

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. Gibbs will get us home._

She spaced the power bars out for as long as she could.

They didn't last the first twenty-four hours.

"Sorry," she whispered when the last one was gone.

"Nothing to be sorry about," Gibbs said.

She paced the room, trying to ignore the constant gnawing in her stomach.

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. They will bring us home._

"Can you talk to me?" she finally blurted out. She blushed a little when she remembered who she was talking to, but she plowed on. "I need a distraction."

"Sure," Gibbs said easily. "I ever tell you about how I met Ducky?"

Bishop had never heard him say anything about his life that wasn't directly relevant to his work, ever. She shook her head.

Gibbs kept up an easier stream of talk than she would have ever dreamed possible.

It didn't stop her stomach from roaring in her chest.

* * *

The second day, the light flickered once, and Bishop's gaze automatically went to her watch for reasons she didn't quite remember. The light steadied and stayed on.

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. I'm here with Gibbs. We will go home._

She heard skittering in the walls sometimes. She wondered if there were rats. She hoped so. If she could catch one - Well, even her distaste for meat wouldn't stop her now.

She froze in her pacing.

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. I'm here with Gibbs._

 _What if we can't both go home?_

"Gibbs?" she said cautiously.

He looked down from his perch at the top of the ladder where he'd been attacking the trapdoor with his knife. "Yeah?"

"I need you to promise me something."

"We're gonna get out of here, Bishop."

She swallowed. "Not that. Um. If I lose control - "

"We to that point yet?"

"No. But - "

"Then don't worry about it."

She shook her head and steamrolled forward. "If I lose control, you have to shoot me."

"Not gonna happen, Bishop."

"Promise me," she insisted.

He sighed and paused in his work. "You won't become a monster," he promised.

If she'd asked the question even two hours later, Bishop might have relaxed. But even through the hunger, her mind was still working well enough to realize that was a bit more subjective than she was willing to put up with.

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. Gibbs will go home._

* * *

A fly had somehow made its way down here earlier. She had sprung for it and slapped it into her mouth before she knew what she was doing.

Bishop had sat down in the corner furthest from Gibbs and refused to move ever since.

Her stomach felt like it was trying to eat its way out of her chest. The whole world was sharp and bright. Her eyes couldn't help but track movement.

And the only movement was from Gibbs.

"They're going to find us, Bishop."

The light flickered overhead.

* * *

She wasn't sure what time it was. The numbers on the clock kept swimming in front of her eyes.

It was her watch. She didn't hear anyone. She could never hear anyone. All she heard was the skittering of rats. She kicked and clawed at the walls for hours trying to get to them until Gibbs had intervened.

For just one moment then, she hadn't seen Gibbs. She had seen prey.

Gibbs was in the corner now. Safe in the sleeping bag.

Bishop looked down at her gun.

She couldn't think straight. Not anymore. She wasn't sure if this was the logical option or not. She had vague memories of Ducky talking about the deadliness of dead bodies. She might not be helping Gibbs at all.

But she was losing control. She might not be able to think at all soon.

She lifted the gun to her mouth. She could have something in her mouth at least.

Gibbs shifted in his corner. He sat up and looked at her with unreadable eyes.

Neither of them moved for a long moment.

She lowered the gun slightly. "Aren't you going to say something?" The words came out muddled and not quite right. She didn't care.

She wasn't sure why she wanted Gibbs to say something. She didn't want him to interfere.

Just - She wanted him to say something.

Gibbs shrugged. "What's there to say?"

Well, what was there to say? She put the gun in her mouth.

Pulled the trigger.

* * *

It clicked.

She pressed the trigger again in confusion, but it just clicked again. She pulled it out and stared at it.

Gibbs got up and stretched. "Like I said. Nothing to say." He paused. "Except that I took your bullets a couple of watches ago."

"Oh." She thought about asking where he put them, but her nose was in overdrive. Now that she was paying attention, she thought she could smell them on him.

There was no way she trusted herself that close to him. Not now.

"Why?" she managed.

"You're gonna get out of here," he promised again.

"Not a monster," she reminded him.

"Not a monster if it's not your fault," he countered.

Her muddled thoughts couldn't make sense of that. "Both go home," she insisted. "Both go home or - " Inspiration finally struck. "Or it won't do any good. Others will kill me." Gibbs could walk out of here alone and survive it. She couldn't.

"I gave up my right to be Challenged for," Gibbs said quietly. "You're gonna be alright, Bishop. It's not going to come to that."

 _My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. I want to go home. No. My name is Ellie Bishop. NCIS is my family. We both have to go home . . ._

* * *

Meat. She could smell meat. Meat in the walls. Meat right here.

But the meat was talking. It was saying - things. She didn't know what. But they made her feel good.

 _Name is - NCIS is - Both go. Both go. Both go._

She had to stay right here. It was very important that she not move. She had to stay here.

 _Both go. Both go. Both go._

Through the hunger, she couldn't remember where it was they had to go.

* * *

Bishop was rocking in the corner. Gibbs didn't disturb her. He sat as still as he could so his scent would spread around the room.

He talked, though. Talking didn't seem to set her off.

"You've got this, Bishop. You're doing good. I'm proud of you. Just hang in there."

An endless loop. Anything to get her to hang on.

He'd drained the second to last water bottle. He rolled the last one to her. She tore the top off with too sharp teeth and drained it.

The light was in a constant state of flickering now. Bishop's eyes were locked on it. His eyes he kept on her.

He kept his gun in its holster. Any team NCIS sent out to look for them would know what they were getting into. They'd be careful to send food down first. Since Bishop was a known proximity wendigo, they wouldn't shoot her without determining what had happened. Since he'd resigned his right to be Challenged for if one of the team did the deed, she would be fine.

"You're gonna be okay, Bishop. You're going to go home."

He kept the gun in the holster. He saw no reason to be ready to shoot.

The light went off.

* * *

Tony looked to McGee impatiently. "They got it?"

"Electricity's off," McGee confirmed.

Tony was already moving towards the building. He didn't care _what_ sort of trap with live wires the perp had set in Boston, it hadn't set well with him to sit and wait.

He moved through the house as fast as he could, McGee covering him and the other agents fanning out in the house. He could feel the connections to his pack throbbing dangerously.

Close. They were close.

His eyes locked on an abandoned cabinet in the middle of the floor. "McGee! That look oddly positioned to you?"

"Yep." McGee helped him shove it off. A trap door appeared in the floor.

And Tony heard muffled shouting.

He yanked the door open. Light from the room flooded down into the basement.

Bishop and Gibbs were at opposite corners. Gibbs' hands were still cupped around his mouth from where he'd been yelling.

"Food," Tony hissed. McGee scrambled for the packs they'd specially prepared and handed one to Tony. He threw it down the hole.

Bishop sprang for it immediately. Gibbs eased around her and climbed the ladder. "Good work," he told them both in an exhausted voice. "Might need to give Bishop a minute." He glanced down. "And some more food."

"On it, Boss."

* * *

Bishop slid her badge and gun across the desk to Gibbs. He glanced down at them. "What's this for?"

"My resignation," she said firmly, hands behind her back. "After what happened, I know I can't continue to work here."

Gibbs' eyes narrowed. "With me."

She followed him, somewhat confused, into the elevator. As soon as the doors shut, Gibbs flicked the emergency stop button. The lights dimmed.

Bishop jumped. "Gibbs!"

"That why you're leaving? Need some time away from it?" Gibbs asked softly. There was no judgement in his tone.

"No," she insisted. "I don't like . . . places like that . . . but I can work through that."

"What's the problem then?"

She bit her lip. "Do you have any idea how close I was to - to - "

"Yep."

"Then why are we having this conversation?" she demanded.

"Bishop, you lasted four days on three power bars, and you kept your control to the end. You think that's something to be ashamed of?"

"But what if it happens again, and rescue doesn't show up in time?"

"Then it happens again. I've got faith in you, Bishop."

She narrowed her eyes. "Faith, or a death wish? I remember what you told me about the Challenge, Gibbs."

"I keep those papers because in our business, you can never be sure what will happen, and I don't want you to be punished for something outside your control. That doesn't mean I'm in a hurry to leave you lot to your own devices. So: Do you want to go?"

She looked down. "No," she admitted.

"Then let's get back to work."


	7. Ziva: What of the Quarry?

**A/N: Title and quotes from Kipling's "Tiger! Tiger!"**

* * *

 _"_ _What of the hunting, hunter bold?/Brother, the watch was long and cold." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

 _Let me tell you a story, child. Yes, I know your father says it is time for lessons. Stories can be lessons too. Stories teach the most important lessons._

 _Hunters are human. Many think that makes them weak. Listen to me, and I will tell you how to be strong._

 _Once upon a time, there was a little girl._

* * *

The scent of herbs permeated her childhood. She remembered her mother tending them in the garden and remembered how her father would pile them up in colorful piles on the floor and teach her the rhymes meant to help her remember their names.

Wolfsbane. Eyebright. Lavendar. Wormwood. Mistletoe. Uncounted others. Those that would not grown naturally in their climate were carefully tended in little pots.

No one cooked well in their household until Ziva decided to learn in her midteens, but everyone could measure out the herbs and turn them into lotions, scented packets, weapons.

Especially weapons.

She remembered her father wrapping his hands around hers as he taught her how to hold a knife, a sword, a gun. She remembered play fights with wooden weapons turning into sparring sessions with very real ones.

She remembered bedtime stories from her

* * *

father that always had the same moral: _This is how to kill our enemies._

Mostly, though, when she remembered her childhood, she remembered the Broxa that slipped past their defenses one night and drank Talia's blood.

Their mother had found Talia cold in her bed the next morning and had screamed and screamed. She had stopped screaming eventually, but the screams had never stopped echoing in her eyes.

Her father had not screamed. He had gathered up his knives to go hunting.

Ari had looked at him with something Ziva later realized had been fury. Fury for not protecting their little sister. Fury for not caring more.

He had been at the wrong angle to see her father's tears as she had.

* * *

 _This girl lived in a village that was attacked every year by a great monster. Every year, the greatest warriors in the village went out into the woods to fight the monster, and every year, some stumbled back with haunted eyes, some stumbled back with great wounds, and some never stumbled back at all._

* * *

The Davids had been hunters for as long as anyone could remember, but that did not mean they could not hold other jobs as well. Her father, for instance, rose to be the Director of Mossad.

He kept the Broxa's wings mounted by his chair in his office. They were too large to ignore.

Ziva tried anyway, because the only thing she could think of when she saw it were screams.

* * *

There was a great deal to fight in this world. Ziva knew that all too well. There were the monsters that haunted their country, and there were human terrorists that threatened it just as much.

She fought, as it was her duty to do. With salt and silver, with bullets and knives, with a tight green dress and a deceptively soft smile.

She remembered the story she had heard when she was very young, and she decided the most unrealistic thing about it was that there had only been one monster in the woods.

She also remembered the part about the warriors stumbling back, and she remembered her mother's haunted eyes, and the way she had drifted through the house after Talia's death. She remembered some of her father's friends who had lost limbs, vision, or hearing to their task.

Someday, she might be one of them. There were too many horrors in this world to pretend otherwise.

Or someday she would be one of the ones that never came back at all.

Everyone died someday. She had made her peace with this.

* * *

 _One year, there were no warriors left to fight, so the girl told her elders, "I will go."_

 _And her elders knew they should stop her, but they were old, and they could not fight themselves, and they were desperate._

 _So they gave her a knife and told her to be quick._

* * *

For the first time she could remember, her father hesitated before handing her the orders. "Are you sure you wish to be Ari's handler for this mission?"

"I am," she said.

So she went with Ari to America and forced herself to admit to the truth as it unfolded.

Ari was one who had stumbled back from the woods with haunted eyes and then attacked the rest of the village.

He killed the banshee, and she didn't much care despite what the Americans claimed about her being on their side, but then he tried to kill Gibbs, and she knew.

He was too far gone to save.

She had her gun. She was quick.

* * *

 _The girl ventured into the woods on the trail of the beast. She had heard many accounts of it from the wounded warriors in the village, but the accounts all contradicted each other, and she wasn't sure what she would find._

* * *

She had to get away from their father after that. She had to, even if it meant joining Gibbs' monstrous team.

He wasn't too happy with the idea either, she could tell, but they made it work. She resisted the urge to knife her coworkers, and he didn't insist she be more than civil.

After the housewarming party with its limited guest list, she learned they had slightly different definitions of the word, but that was alright. She could learn.

* * *

The first time Tony was accused of murder, she believed the FBI's report wholeheartedly, and she was disgusted with the rest of the team's refusal to see the truth. He was a werewolf, and worse, part fey. He was bloodthirsty and untrustworthy, and she did not know why they could not see that.

But she had promised Gibbs she would not kill anyone on the team, so she held herself to that.

When he was proven innocent, framed by someone who was entirely human, she decided that perhaps she needed to reexamine some of her assumptions.

Magic in general was still dangerous, of course, but if there were any exceptions in this world, of course Gibbs would be the one to draw them to his team.

* * *

When _she_ was accused of murder after the goblin - Dempsey boy, she corrected herself - collapsed, she was not surprised that some of the others believed her capable of it.

She _was_ surprised when Tim tried to comfort her during the incident. She was perfectly alright.

But it had been - kind of him. Very kind.

And when Ducky pronounced the death of natural causes, Tony actually apologized for his doubts which was - also nice.

Even if he did immediately turn it into a joke.

* * *

The second time Tony was accused of murder, she acted as if she believed him innocent despite lingering doubts.

The third time, she did not only act as if he was innocent. She was quite, quite certain of it.

* * *

She did not understand these people. This vampire who insisted that caffeine be added to her blood, this wizard who did not want to be, this werewolf who liked classic movies and gradually forgot that she knew all his weaknesses and how to exploit them. She especially did not understand Gibbs, who reined this beast of a team in and kept them all in check.

She did not understand, but she thought she would like to.

* * *

 _She looked and she looked, but she could not find the beast. All she found was an old woman, who invited her into her cottage to share a meal._

 _The little girl went in very cautiously, afraid to find what was within, but it was a very ordinary cottage, and the woman served her bread and apples that were very, very good._

 _"_ _Thank you," the child said when she had eaten, "but what are you doing out here? Surely you must fear the monster."_

 _"_ _Oh, greatly," said the woman. "But I must stay here, for where else could I go? Your village exiled me long ago."_

 _"_ _For what?" asked the girl._

 _"_ _For being different," the woman said, and she turned to wash the dishes. When she did, the little girl saw the scales on the woman's back, for the beast could never entirely hide its nature._

 _"_ _Why did you help me?" the little girl asked, to cover the sound of her knife being drawn from its sheath._

 _"_ _Because you are too thin, my child, and because even I wish sometimes to do some good."_

 _The girl would have hesitated then, but hesitation does you no good when the knife is already in the air._

* * *

Then her father died, and Ziva knew she had a choice.

She could chase the monster that had killed him, or she could stay with the team. With the pack, as Tony liked to call it, and which she had brought herself to do if only in her own mind.

She had many doubts about her decision, but it was too late for doubts when her knife was covered with the blood of her revenge.

* * *

 _The knife hit the monster square in the back and it died. The little girl dragged it back to the village, crying as she went._

 _Now tell me, my child, did she make the right choice? Hm? The monster was dangerous, you know. It had killed all the other warriors. Yet it was kind to her then, even if it might have turned dangerous again later. What should she have done?_

 _You do not know, I see. That is alright. I am not your father. I do not insist that you choose one side or the other. I only ask that you think._

* * *

She went back to Israel. She kept hunting, but she was pickier about her targets now. Mostly, she taught.

Taught little girls how to hold knives. Taught little boys how to blend a mixture of salt, rosemary, and wolfsbane that would give most magical creatures a good shock.

She visited the team sometimes, and she couldn't help thinking, _"If only."_

But the knife was thrown.

* * *

 _"_ _Grandmother?"_

 _"_ _Yes, child?"_

 _"_ _Are those scales beneath your sleeves?"_

 _"_ _It is armor. The better to protect you with, my dear."_

 _"_ _Grandmother?"_

 _"_ _Yes, child?"_

 _"_ _Why does Father say you are dead?"_

 _"_ _Because your father is a stubborn man who believes matters of birth are all that determine these titles. I raised him and protected him from his family's quite extensive list of enemies for six months after his mother died while we waited for his father to get home, and I've kept an eye on him ever since. I think that makes me your grandmother, don't you?"_

 _"_ _Grandmother?"_

 _"_ _Yes, child?"_

 _"_ _How did his first mother die?"_

 _"_ _She attacked a shapeshifter's nest, my child, and killed her chicks, which made the shapeshifter very angry."_

 _"_ _And very lonely?"_

 _"_ _Yes. So his mother killed three shapeshifters before they could come into the world, and I got a stubborn son to replace them, and we both got a little bit of what we wanted."_

 _"_ _Grandmother?"_

 _"_ _Yes, child?"_

 _"_ _Father doesn't know you're here, does he?"_

 _"_ _Of course not, dear. And that's not the real question. The real question is, are you going to throw that knife?"_

* * *

 **A/N: A Broxa is a mythological bird from Jewish folklore, originally thought to drink milk from goats, leaving the goats barren, but who eventually became more threatening and was said to drink human blood - particularly that of children. They were said to be flying shapeshifters. I got my information from wikipedia and occultopedia . . . although the last website was a little weird . . . if you want to look up more information.**

 **This is late, short, and I'm not entirely happy with it, but Ziva has never been my favorite character for reasons that I'm happy to get into but that you probably don't care about. Ah, well. Hopefully the next piece for this series will go better!**


	8. The Right of the Father

**A/N: Title and quote from Kipling's "Law of the Jungle."**

* * *

 _"_ _Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

Being a ghoul was awkward.

Palmer had read numerous articles and books on the place of the ghoul in both history and modern society and had heard far more poetic and eloquent descriptions, but what it came down to, at least in his case, was that one word.

Awkward.

Awkward because of the conflict between where it was a ghoul's instinct to be - somewhere near dead bodies, like in autopsy or a funeral home - and society's reaction to that idea. No one liked the idea of a species famous for eating corpses anywhere near their dead family members.

Awkward because they were scavengers in a world that respected predators and was compassionate to prey, but where popular perception had no mercy for the metaphorical vultures. Awkward because his joints were all wrong for normal human movement and trying to pretend otherwise left him clumsy everywhere but the autopsy table.

Just - awkward.

Being with Breena . . . That was the least awkward he'd ever felt. Alone with another ghoul, he didn't have to worry if his movements looked unnatural to the human eye. He didn't have to rein in a sense of humor most found in morbidly poor taste.

Marriage felt as natural as breathing, but the quiet worry of a child disrupted it. No one would let two ghouls adopt anything other than one of their own kind, and the odds of getting an orphaned ghoul were incredibly low. There was a reason he wasn't optimistic about their chances at a biological child of their own. Ghouls were too connected to death to have an easy job producing life.

It happened, obviously, or they wouldn't be here, but there was a reason the number of ghouls had never been very high.

Then Breena got pregnant with Victoria, and Palmer didn't care how awkward he looked dancing around autopsy with sheer joy when he got the news. He didn't care if the way he turned all conversation to his coming daughter was socially inept. He was going to have a daughter, a _daughter_ , and there was nothing awkward about that at all.

Ducky's delight didn't surprise him at all, but Gibbs' clear approval at his excitement and Tony's enthusiasm just buoyed him up all the more.

* * *

Tim had never really paid much attention to Tony's interactions with kids, except to tease him when he got awkward around kids on cases, so he was surprised at just how eagerly Tony agreed to babysit when Tim hesitantly asked about a year after his daughter was born.

When he and Delilah got back from their date night, he half expected the place to be a chaotic shambles, but Tony was on the floor with her, using stuffed animals to act out a story for her fascinated eyes, chubby hands grasping for the animals when they came close.

"Wow," he said as Tony handed her off to Delilah. "I knew you were excited when we made the announcement, but I really thought you didn't do well with kids."

"Normal kids, sure," Tony agreed easily, stretching as he stood.

Delilah's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Normal?"

"Megan's perfectly normal," Tim said hastily with a hint of nerves. They hadn't brought up her magic with anyone, and he didn't intend to.

"Yeah, but she's pack." Tony said like that explained everything. "See you tomorrow, McGeek." He walked out the door, waving goodbye to Delilah and Megan as he went.

McGee stared after him for a moment before shaking his head and holding his arms out for Megan. Delilah passed her over.

"So how was Uncle Tony, huh?" he asked, bouncing her.

Megan giggled. "Tony, Tony!" she said, clapping her hands.

"Huh," he repeated.

* * *

Tony blamed the fey side of him for his awkwardness with most kids. The fey weren't always the most paternal of beings, and besides that, the immortal beings almost never had kids. Children were foreign to that side of his nature and that made him nervous.

Pack kids, though, those were different. That was _pack_ and it was hard to explain to anyone else. The wolf demanded that they be taught and protected, and its delight at their existence smoothed over the awkwardness Tony usually felt.

Pack kids were different, and that was even before he got one of his own.

* * *

It had vaguely occurred to him that a kid might someday result from one of his many girlfriends, but he'd honestly thought his fey side made that pretty unlikely.

 _Unlikely_ wasn't _impossible_ , though, as he was bluntly reminded when a blonde woman whose name he almost remembered showed up at his door the night of the full moon with a squirming bundle of half-shifted toddler.

"Take her," she said, shoving the little girl in his arms. "I can't take it anymore. Her stuff's here, I'll get the paperwork to you as soon as possible."

Tony blinked and opened his mouth to protest, but as soon as he did, the girl's scent flooded in.

Wolf, nearly overpowering as the moon rose. Fey, just a light, lingering scent. Not enough to control the shift apparently, at least at this young age. Slowly dying flowers, like Kate's neglected plants had smelled after a long, brutal case.

And above all, a scent that was unmistakably _his._

He stood rooted to the spot as the woman stalked off. A half-strangled sound came out of his throat, and he wasn't sure if it was a growl or a call to wait.

It didn't matter. She was gone, and the girl - Thalia, _his_ Thalia - was here.

He dragged the bags the woman - Marie, that had been her name - had left by the door into the apartment with one hand and then shut the door and collapsed onto the couch.

Thalia squirmed in his lap as she finished shifting until what was looking up at him was a tiny, curled up wolf pup.

"Hey," he said softly. "Let me set you down for a moment, and I'll show you something neat."

He didn't normally transform in his apartment since it would be a bit of a tight fit, but he'd make an exception tonight. She shouldn't have to feel alone.

He shifted into an enormous wolf and laid down on the carpet. After a few moments, Thalia leaped off the couch and padded over cautiously. When he didn't stop her, she curled up next to him.

He curled around the tiny ball of warmth and tried to think beyond the automatic instinct of _m_ _ine._

* * *

The next morning, when his instincts had died down a bit and he'd shifted back, he did what he should have done from the start.

He called Gibbs.

* * *

Gibbs had been a father once.

That _once_ was what kept him up at nights and had made him decide all those years ago that it didn't matter much if the mouthy detective from Baltimore eventually killed him.

Things hadn't turned out as he'd planned when he'd tried to have a family. It shouldn't have surprised him that things hadn't turned out like he'd planned when he'd tried to start a purely professional team.

Now Palmer's kid called Ducky "Grandducky," Megan had bright stick figure drawings of "Uncle Tony, Aunt Ellie, and Aunt Abby," and it wasn't to their own fathers' houses that most of the team wandered off to on a certain day in June.

He'd looked for a family and found death. Looked for death and found a family.

He shook his head and tried to clear the fog out of it. If that was the kind of thought popping into his head, then maybe it was time to concede that Ducky was right about him getting more sleep. He eased himself off the couch and headed to the kitchen.

His cell burst out ringing, and he flipped it open and brought it to his ear. "Gibbs."

"You've got another grandkid," Tony blurted from the other side, sounding half panicked and half proud.

"Tony?"

"Right, right. Explanation." Tony took a deep breath. A faint crashing noise came in from the background. "No! Don't - " A few moments of frantic sound later and Tony was back. "I don't suppose you could drop by? It might be easier than trying to explain over the phone. Also, I know how you feel about lawyers, but I think I might need one."

It was their day off. Gibbs grabbed his keys and headed to the car. "On my way."

* * *

 **A/N:** **This is the end of series arc, so to speak. I'd still like to do those episode spin-offs I mentioned but - and this may not make much sense as the order of this series is haphazard at best - they won't be advancing the plot the way these have.**

 **Which, again, doesn't make much sense; this has hardly been a chronological progression. The order, however, has felt right to me, like the different perspectives are slowly coming together to make the complete story. These one shots won't add to those perspectives, they'll just address missing moments.**

 **Some notes on Thalia:**

 **I chose not to have Ziva and Tony get together, because in this AU, I just don't see that happening. I did, however, really want Tony to have a kid. While I have . . . views . . . on Tony's string of girlfriends, they did at least provide an answer to that problem. Marie is not intentionally based on anyone from the show.**

 **Speaking of Marie, my backstory for this is that she fully intended to raise the kid on her own . . . right up until she realized that the werewolf curse had fallen on her kid, and that Thalia was just fey enough to rub her senses as unnatural. She wasn't intentionally cruel, but she was scared of her own kid, and that's not a good recipe for successful parenting. I have no idea what the legalities would be in handing over custody to Tony, so I intentionally left that bit as a vague future part.**

 **I chose Thalia as a name to keep it close to Tali. Tony's reaction to her is going to be considerably different here then in canon both due to the circumstances and the werewolf instincts; running away from the pack is literally not an option.**

 **A note on her genetics, if anyone cares: She's one-fourth fey since her grandmother was one. Since being a werewolf is, in Tony's case, a curse passed down the genetic line, not a species as such, Thalia is still 100% werewolf. The reason Tony considers himself "half werewolf" is because the wolf has roughly 50% pull on his instincts as the fey instincts are also battling for control. That balance will have tipped in the wolf's favor in Thalia's case. That plus her youth destroys a lot of her control.**

 **I named McGee's kid Megan because as far as I'm aware we don't even know the kid's gender yet, much less a name. If I'm wrong, or when one becomes known, I might go back and change it.**


	9. Meanwhile: Make Dreams Your Master

**A/N: I don't own NCIS; quotes and title from Kipling's "If - "**

 **Which I also don't own.**

 **This is a spin-off of "S.W.A.K." And by spin-off, I mean I was thinking about that episode when I started writing, then decided to set it after Kate died so I could keep the death song thing consistent and then decided the plague probably wouldn't affect half-fey and decided to veer off. Also, the motive and person responsible are entirely different.**

 **But it is Tony whump.**

* * *

 _"If you can dream - and not make dreams your master." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

"Mom."

She was only about a foot away from the shore at the moment. The water was only lapping over her feet. She didn't bother to look back at him, though. Her eyes were locked on deeper waters. "He's calling. I have to go."

"No, you don't." Tony strode across the sand towards her, his polished dress shoes sinking into the sand. "I'm not ten years old any more, Mom. I'm not going to let you do this."

His mother didn't respond. She just kept walking into the sea's embrace.

* * *

 _Tony took one look at the house they'd pulled up at and said, "This is a bad idea."_

 _"You try telling Gibbs that," McGee grumbled as he got out of the passenger seat. "I swear, if these leads get any slimmer - "_

 _"Not the lead, McGrumble, the house." His eyes darted over the ring of mushrooms in the otherwise meticulously laid out garden and landed on the pretty fruit trees he could just glimpse in the back. Bells were ringing softly, but he couldn't see any. "A fey lives here."_

 _McGee frowned. He looked at the house, but he didn't see what Tony recognized all too well. "Are you sure? How can you tell?"_

 _"I don't argue when you say something's been done with wizardry." Well, not often. "I'm sure."_

 _McGee shrugged. "Okay. You want to do the talking then?"_

 _Tony stared at him incredulously. "Do I want - No, I don't want to do any talking, I want to get out of here!"_

 _McGee frowned. "What'll we tell Gibbs?"_

 _That was the one sticking point. He didn't want to even imagine Gibbs' reaction would be to this._

 _A vision of a disappointed Gibbs warred with the image of being the main course at an Unseelie feast. Of course, if that happened, Gibbs would still be disappointed, down two pack members and possibly in the crosshairs, so - "We'll figure it out on the way," he said tensely. "Some other agents can come back later."_

 _McGee's frown deepened. "Why can't we do it? You're part fey, you know what you're doing."_

 _Tony took a deep breath and hissed, "Because there are different courts of fey, and this, this is not the court my people come from!" For that matter, even if this was the court his people came from, he wouldn't be much better off. He doubted they'd be delighted to see the half-breed son of a deserter._

 _The first rule for surviving the fey, his mother told him long ago, was to run. Run fast, run hard, plug your ears, and don't look back._

 _McGee's mouth opened in an understanding "o" shape just as the front door whispered open. A tiny woman with soft green hair splattered with silver stood beside it. "Oh, don't worry about that, dears, we're all renegades here. Come in, come in."_

 _Sharp hearing. Tony had forgotten that. His father's ability to hear whispers across a room and use them in a con had never left him, but he'd forgotten how his mother could hear the waves long before they neared the shore._

 _If they'd been on the road, he'd have given a charming refusal and dragged McGee back into the car._

 _But they were on her driveway. Her property._

 _Refusing hospitality now was a bad idea._

 _So Tony smiled and said, "We'd be glad to."_

* * *

His mother was nearly out of the shallows by the time he reached the water's edge. He set his mouth grimly and marched in.

The icy water sank through his slacks and reached his legs. The muscles jumped.

He tried to shove the wolf backwards as he continued to run after his mother.

"Oberon's calling." He'd forgotten how musical her voice was. Normally, it was enchanting.

Now it sounded like the band had started trying to play six different songs at once.

"Mom," he pleaded. "Come back."

His mother was in up to her shoulders now. She kept walking and walking.

The water reached her chin.

* * *

 _It was too late to whisper instructions into McGee's ear. She'd hear them and might take offense._

 _So Tony led the way with a blinding smile. "We're special agents with NCIS. We're here about the death of Commander Prewitt."_

 _She tutted and stepped back to let them in. "Nasty business. An ugly end for a young man with such a nice name. And what might your names be, young men?"_

 _His mother hadn't known what her last name would be until her wedding day. That his father had ever told her the whole of it was a show of trust Tony still had trouble believing._

 _"You can call me Tony," he said, still with that easy smile. "And after all the whining I had to put up with on the ride here, you can call him McGrumble."_

 _A misstep. Stupid. Nicknames were good, but he was too used to taunting McGee with them. He should have chosen something that didn't imply ingratitude. The fey hated ingratitude._

 _But the little green woman just smiled and led them into the kitchen. "Nasty business, nasty business. Painful to watch."_

 _"You saw something?" McGee said sharply._

 _"Oh, yes. I see most things around here, my dear. I used to see more before dear Queen Mab banished me from the ponds I used to scry in."_

 _"Must be irritating not having anyone to talk to about it," Tony said with calculated lightness._

 _"I used to have scribes to catch my every word," she said wistfully. "That was nearly a decade ago, of course."_

 _Too long. Any fey that was a renegade that long was mad or nearly so._

 _"Come, come! Have a seat in the kitchen, my dears. It's been too long since I've had proper guests."_

* * *

His mother's head slid under the water.

Tony gave up running and dove to swim after her.

The water tugged at his suit. For a fraction of a moment, that was all it did, and then the cold hit, and the wolf inside him started howling in agony.

But he could see his mother's slender form just ahead _._

 _Mom._

For just a moment, he thought he heard someone call his name from the shore.

He ignored it.

* * *

 _"Tea, dears? Fruit?"_

 _"I'm afraid we can't eat on the job," McGee said apologetically._

 _"But we're not on the job, McGrumble," Tony said. The smile was starting to hurt. "We're here as guests. Some fruit would be delightful."_

 _If they were here on the job, they were intruders. Invaders. If they ate food, they were here as guests, and protected under the laws of hospitality._

 _There was only one problem with that. Humans couldn't eat fey food._

 _Well, they could. Of course they_ could _. It was just that humans could eat fey food in the same sense that Tony could start doing the polar bear plunge as a New Year's tradition or an Unseelie fey could tell Queen Mab that it was really time that they considered the benefits of a democracy._

 _People could do most anything. It was just that some things you could really only do once._

 _The little green woman - and Tony knew her name, he just didn't believe it any more than she believed "McGrumble," and he didn't want to use it till he figured out what the alias meant - turned and started plating the fruit. She hummed as she worked._

 _McGee's eyes went wide when he saw it. Tony didn't blame him. The fruit looked mouth watering and deceptively innocuous._

 _Pomegranates. Apples. Jinmenju._

 _Okay, considering that last one looked like tiny human heads, maybe not that one._

 _"What - " McGee squeaked._

 _"Jinmenju," Tony said quickly. "Surely you've heard of them, McGeek. They normally only grow in Japan." He turned back to their - host. "I'm impressed."_

 _She smiled and handed over the platter. "Just a moment and I'll go get some water to wash that down with." She turned to get glasses._

 _Tony pointed at the plate and frantically shook his head at McGee before miming zipping his lips. Tim nodded quickly._

 _Good. At least he wouldn't have to worry about McGee thanking her._

 _She brought back two glasses of water. "Eat, eat," she encouraged._

 _Not the pomegranates. Too risky. The apples, though . . ._

 _It was a risk. His constitution was only half-fey, and he didn't even know what variety these were._

 _But he saw that mad light in her eyes and thought this might be his best chance. "Tell you what," he said, leaning back, "let's play a game. Just like they do back in the old country."_

 _She perked up. "Oh?"_

 _"I'll eat," he said, "and for every piece I manage to swallow, you'll answer one question of McGrumble's."_

 _It was a risk. He might only get one bite of apple down. He might have gone too far by risking the bond of host and guest by turning the sacred rite into a game. He might have revealed too much by confirming what she must have already guessed, that he didn't trust her offering._

 _But Miss Jenny - and he got the joke of her alias now, now that he saw her green, green teeth - said, "So mote it be."_

* * *

He heard a splash behind him. He ignored it just like he ignored his burning, twisting muscles, and kept swimming. He was almost there, almost to his mother, and this time he was going to do it, he was going to save her -

He grabbed her arm and started tugging her towards the surface.

His mother's arms twisted until they were entwined around him. "He's calling," she hissed even though they were still underwater. "Oberon's calling."

He shook his head. He can't have you.

But suddenly his mother was heavy as lead, and her arms turned restraining. "Oberon's calling." Her nails bit into his chest. "Calling for _you_."

* * *

 _It was a good thing he'd never cared one way or another about apples because the first bite confirmed he'd never be able to eat mundane ones again. No ordinary apples could be this crisp, this sweet, this perfect._

 _"What do you know about Commander Prewitt's death?"_

 _Not specific enough. She could go on with irrelevant details for hours._

 _"Did you see him die?"_

 _Better._

 _"What killed him?"_

 _Bad question for the fey, McGeek. They'll always say something like 'rudeness.'_

 _"What was the murder weapon?"_

 _There you go._

 _And all the while, bite after bite. Sweet and crunchy and good, and it was making his mind go all kinds of fuzzy around the edges._

 _"Who killed him?"_

 _Good job, McGeek. Finally to the point of the matter. Good thing too, he was running out of apple slices._

 _She was answering, and that was good. McGee'd had a lot of questions. He hadn't even caught all of them. Some of them had been stupid questions. Questions that hadn't been meant to be questions at all, just common turns of phrase that McGee hadn't had trained out of him._

 _Tsk, tsk, little probie. Good little wizards know how to treat with the fey._

 _They had better, at least._

 _He hoped McGee had gotten the answers he needed. His head was swirling. Drooping._

 _He couldn't possibly eat another bite._

* * *

Tony reared back. Oberon couldn't be calling him.

"He sees you," his mother said. Her voice was oddly distorted by the water. "You've eaten our fruit and drunk our water. He sees you now like never before. He calls you."

A muffled impression of sound battered his senses. Someone else had been calling.

His mother's fingernails were digging towards his heart. "You belong to him, pup. Go to him. What else do you have?"

 _I have a pack,_ he protested, still not daring to open his mouth.

His mother sneered. "And when they die as your banshee died? When your Gibbs abandons you?"

 _Not gonna happen._

"All mortals die. Would you die as one of them?" his mother demanded.

No. Not his mother.

"Better than being Oberon's lapdog," he spat. If saying that got him killed, so be it.

The words hung muffled in the water before the phantom of his mother disappeared, and water rushed into his mouth. It was colder than anything he'd touched before, and his whole body was shaking, shaking to pieces -

A strong arm latched around him and started towing him to the surface. Th _e_ closer they got, the clearer the words became _._

 _Don't you dare give up, DiNozzo. You don't have permission to die yet. Hang on, Tony, hang on -_

* * *

 _"Come on, DiNozzo, it's safe now."_

 _Tony's eyes drifted open. He was in a hospital room._

 _"Guess I'm sleeping beauty now," he croaked. Or maybe Snow White. She'd been the one with the apples, after all._

 _The lines around Gibbs' eyes eased. "You alright there, DiNozzo?"_

 _"Been better," he admitted. "We get the killer?" First question probably should have been how long he'd been out, but he had a feeling he'd be going back under soon. That question could wait until after he'd woken up a second time._

 _Gibbs settled back in his chair. "Didn't have to. Jenny already had. Along with about a dozen other people."_

 _"Ah." He rubbed his aching head. "We get Jenny?" That nickname was going to get awkward, since she shared it with the director._

 _"Yep."_

 _Tony frowned. "McGee couldn't have done it. He was still a guest."_

 _Gibbs raised an eyebrow, "So, he got you out of there and called me."_

 _"Oh." His eyes widened. "You took on a full fey?"_

 _"You doubting me, DiNozzo?"_

 _He shook his head rapidly, ignoring the headache. "Nope. Absolutely not."_

 _"Good."_

 _Tony noted the dark circles under Gibbs' eyes and frowned. "Have you been here ever since, Boss? That can't be good for you."_

 _"Go back to sleep, DiNozzo."_

 _Not a proper answer. That meant yes. He fought back a grin. "On it, Boss." He settled back under the covers and thought of a voice calling him back to the surface. "Thanks, Boss."_

 _He was pretty sure it was just the dreams talking when he heard a quiet, "Any time, Tony."_

* * *

 **A/N: Normally, I would have done it the other way around, with the dream in italics and reality in ordinary font, but I wanted to mess with the line between reality and dream a bit, so . . . Don't know if it worked, but it was an interesting experiment.**


	10. Meanwhile: Till the Leaders Have Spoken

**A/N: Title and quote from Kipling's "Law of the Jungle."**

 **This may not be the last of these, folks, but at the very least it's the last for a while. I want to try and finally finish Family of Choice and Chance.**

* * *

 _"When pack meets with pack in the jungle, and neither will go from the trail,/Lie down till the leaders have spoken; it may be fair words shall prevail." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

 _The oldest packs were bound by blood. A lot of packs were still that way._

* * *

 _1._

The full moon called to both of his parents, though admittedly in very different ways. It brought the wolf out in his father - subtly during the day, then transformatively at night. No matter what shape he was in, though, it was still his father. Senses keener, maybe, a little sharper sometimes, a little more nostalgic for the family that had kicked him out when he married Tony's mother, but still his father.

Tony's mother on the other hand . . . She went wild.

Eyes dancing. Always laughing. Pulling him into dancing with her on the beach, singing in a language he didn't quite recognize, talking in riddles and word games.

They'd spend the nights on the moon drenched beach together. His father would run around in wolven form, and his mother would dance with her arms raised to the moon. Tony would join them, sometimes in one form, sometimes in another.

When he was young, it was fun. A chance to stay up past his bedtime and do whatever he wanted.

When he got older, it got less fun. He started noticing the ragged edges to his mother's laughter. He started noticing the way she got lost in the music and had to start again.

He definitely noticed when his ever graceful mother stumbled and fell in the middle of her dance.

His father ran over and nudged her side with his nose, whining a little.

His mother just threw her head back and laughed and laughed.

The day before the next full moon, she walked into the sea.

* * *

 _2._

Tony's ears weren't quite as sharp as his mother's had been, but they were quite sharp enough to catch at least some of the other end of a phone call, even if he'd been on the other side of a thick door at the time.

It took him a moment to place the voice. It wasn't one he'd heard very often, and every time he'd heard it before . . .

Shouting. That was what he'd remembered. Every time he'd heard it before, the voice had been shouting.

Grandfather. That's who it had been.

He knocked on the door with more confidence than he felt. He decided to take his father's distracted grunt as permission to come in.

His father was sitting at his desk and staring at the blank wall in front of him like he could see right through it.

"Dad?" Tony asked cautiously.

His father started. "Tony! What are you doing here?"

"I haven't seen you all day," Tony pointed out. "I haven't seen you for the past _two_ days."

"Yes, well, I've been busy . . . " He started fiddling with the papers on his desk.

"What did Grandfather want? I thought he wasn't talking to us."

His father glanced up and and tried to smile. It didn't quite work. "Yes. Well, in light of - recent events - He's reconsidering."

The penny dropped. "Because Mom died." His mouth twisted.

His father's eyes grew pained for just a moment, but he pushed through it. "Because there's very little to fight over any more." His eyes grew distant. "Two's not quite ideal for a pack, you know, and it's been so long . . . "

So long since his father had run with proper wolves. So long since he'd seen the rest of the family.

Tony felt a burning ball of anger in the pit of his stomach every time he thought of how they'd hated Mom, but he had to admit he was curious. He'd never met any family outside of his parents. All he had were overheard arguments on the phone.

"Are we going to go visit them or something?" he asked cautiously.

His father swallowed. "Something like that." He considered Tony for a moment. His critical gaze made Tony suddenly very aware of the mud he'd tracked in with him. "Yes, it will be for the best."

Two weeks later, Tony was off to his first boarding school. His father was on a plane to Italy.

It didn't take Tony long to put the pieces together. The pack might be willing to welcome the prodigal home, but his half-breed son was another matter. Better to ship the embarrassment off and to deal with him only when absolutely necessary.

Tony was very little to fight over, after all.

* * *

 **There were other kinds of pack too, of course, especially in modern times. Packs bonded by choice, not blood.**

* * *

 **1.**

There was never any question of going on the cruise with his former frat brothers. Sure, _technically_ he'd be perfectly safe from the water on the cruise ship, but he wasn't about to take any chances. Besides, it would mean a week away from his pack and while that was doable, he'd spend the whole time anxious to get back, and the last thing he needed was for McGee and Ziva to tease him about being a worrywart.

But the invitation to the cruise had brought to mind the matter of how he'd pay for the trip if had decided to go, and that had reminded him of the trust waiting for him in a bank account.

He didn't need the money, certainly not urgently, but it was _his_ and both sets of instincts had very firm imperatives about claiming things that were his. So when he saw his father still listed as overseeing the account . . .

Well, might as well go ahead and take care of it. Maybe then the next time one of them had a medicine defying injury, they could pay for a healer instead of relying on McGee. They didn't need a repeat of the post-amnesia-ice-McGee.

So. Call Dad. Grit his teeth through the necessary conversation to get him to take care of it. Save the money for a rainy day. Simple.

Right up until his dad decided to show up.

He saw his dad standing down there by his desk and he just - froze. He could hear McGoo saying something, but he couldn't focus on it.

Because that was his dad. Right there.

And his fey side was saying, _He betrayed you, he hurt you, punish him, kill him,_ and the old, frail bonds of pack were saying, _Leader, leader, go, obey,_ and the newer bonds of pack were saying, _Intruder, wrong, threat, you're a traitor to think otherwise -_

"Dad." The word fell quietly into the chaos of the bullpen, but his dad heard anyway. He looked up and waved.

McGee, to his credit, stopped babbling and said, "I'll go get Gibbs," in a slightly squeaky voice.

Tony decided not to tease him about it.

He headed down to his desk in a daze. For once, his instincts weren't telling him what to do. Or, rather, they were telling him too much to do, and that was sort of like having free choice, and he just - didn't know. He wished Gibbs would hurry up and get here and bark orders for them to get back to work. Then he could just bury all this and move on.

His instincts screamed at the idea of the two of them in the same room, insisting it would end in blood, but that was stupid. They weren't rival pack leaders, this wasn't the dark ages, and Tony wasn't worth fighting over anyway.

His dad beamed at him when he finally got down the stairs "Junior! How've you been?"

Tony's skin felt hot and stretched. "Oh, you know," he said. "Pretty good. Nearly went mad from the isolation once or twice, but what can you do?" He looked his dad in the eye as he said. A challenge.

His dad just waved a hand dismissively. "Always so dramatic. I take it you're with one of the D.C. packs now?"

He wanted to say, _"Yeah, this one,"_ but that wasn't strictly accurate, was it? The team was his pack, but that pack was a delicate construction of his perception and Gibbs' tolerance. Abby might be willing to go for the label, but Ziva wouldn't, and he wasn't sure about McGee. He wasn't about to risk getting shot down about that now of all times.

"Why are you here, Dad?" he asked instead. "The account? Because you really didn't have to come here for that. _Really."_

His dad smiled at him, that old conman's smile, and said, "Can't I just want to come and see my only son?"

Tony could smell his father's pack on him. Cousins. Aunts. Uncles. Grandparents. All the people Senior had abandoned him for.

"You never have before," he pointed out, and things - kind of went downhill from there.

Not in a screaming match way. Tony might not have minded a nice cathartic screaming match.

But Gibbs came back in and told them they needed to get to the hotel which would have been fine if his dad hadn't managed to keep Tony behind for just "One moment, I need to ask my son something," and the once they were alone -

It was like being a kid again. The old instincts grabbed hold, and he answered his dad's questions like they were still a pack, or like Tony was still that scared kid at boarding school, doing anything and everything just to try and get his dad's attention from an ocean away.

The moment he was alone in the elevator, he felt sick, and just the thought of facing Gibbs after that made him want to punch something, and the worst part was, if he told somebody, they wouldn't even get it.

He hadn't spilled any overly sensitive information. He'd bent the rules a bit, but not more than any of the others have done in the past. Gibbs will be a little irritated he's late, and that's it.

If this was a wolf pack, it would be different. If this was a wolf pack, Gibbs would be in his face demanding he pick a side right now.

But this wasn't a wolf pack. It was his pack.

He successfully resisted both the urge to punch the elevator wall and the urge to throw up.

Go him.

* * *

 **2.**

Gibbs had made it a point to know as much as he could about his team, but he didn't know everything. He couldn't always predict what would set them off.

This time, though, he hadn't needed Ducky's trivia strewn analysis of the werewolf mind to get it. He didn't know what DiNozzo's childhood had been like or what had led him here, but he did know how close to the edge DiNozzo had been in Baltimore, and he knew he hadn't considered going to his father an option. That was all Gibbs really needed to know.

He wasn't exactly sorry to have the chance to drag the man into interrogation.

"Meet the real Tony DiNozzo," the man said with a smile.

Gibbs chuckled. "Oh, I don't know about that. Our Tony's pretty one of a kind."

Senior's eyes were suddenly reassessing. Caught on the possessive, most likely. "I don't suppose you know what pack he's joined, do you? I can't get a straight answer out of him."

Gibbs smiled. "He's one of us."

 _"Interesting thing about smiles,"_ Ducky had told him once. _"Nearly every other species instinctively thinks it's a threat when you bare your teeth. It might explain something about our early interactions with some groups, certainly - "_

He held his smile even as Senior subtly tried to capture the scent of the room again.

Wondering if he'd missed something. Trying to catch a trace of a wolf.

Gibbs didn't need magic to keep his teeth sharp.

He pushed through the rest of the interview. The result was pretty much what he'd expected. Anthony DiNozzo Sr. had not placed the bomb. Gibbs doubted that anyone really thought he had; werewolves weren't exactly known for killing remotely at such a distance that they couldn't even see the blood.

Gibbs was pretty sure one of them was going to use that fact someday, but that wasn't the point at the moment.

He leaned back in his chair. Interview over. Time to let Senior think he could relax. "You going to be staying in town for a while?"

Senior raised an eyebrow. "Is this the point where you warn me off?"

Gibbs snorted. "If Tony wants you gone, I have full confidence in his ability to kick you out." If Tony wanted his father in his life, than Gibbs wasn't going to stand in the way. He'd even help, if it turned out there was anything he could do. "But if you're planning to skip out on him before he has the chance to decide, then I thought it was only fair to warn you." He stood and nailed Senior with every last bit of the steel that he'd used to survive this insane world. "You leave him now, you don't come back. 'Cause if you do, we'll be waiting."

* * *

 **3.**

He knew it was bad when Tony let the door slam behind him without pestering Gibbs to start keeping it locked.

Gibbs already had the steaks ready. Medium well done for himself, very well done for Tony.

Judging by the way he'd seen Tony look at the meat when it was raw, he suspected that Tony's consistency in requesting it well done had more to do with making some kind of point point than it was real preference, but he wasn't Ducky. It wasn't his job to pyschoananlyze it.

Tony paced around the room. He was shaking, ever so slightly, like he was on the verge of a transformation, and his eyes were filled with a feverish fey light.

"Gone! Just like that. No note, no goodbye, no 'I love you' - You know, I don't think I've heard him say that since - ever, possibly. Mom said it more than him, and the fey treat those words like they're some kind of explosive. I paid for the stinking hotel room, and do I even get a thank you?" He paused for breath.

"Hanging around your mom might have trained him out of thank you's," Gibbs pointed out mildly.

Tony turned sharply, something even sharper very visibly building in his mouth, but he swallowed it just before it burst. He deflated, and the shadows in the room seemed to retreat a little for it. "Yeah. Maybe." He sank down onto the couch.

Gibbs passed him one of the steaks. "Here. Eat."

Tony smiled wryly. "Thanks, Boss." He leaned back into the seat cushions. "You know, the way I grew up, it took me forever to learn to say that once I got sent to school. It freaked me out at first, everyone tossing those words around."

Gibbs wondered if Tony realized that he still avoided those words with everyone outside the team, deflecting them like blows in a fight. Only with the team did he let them slip out, like he didn't care as much about the obligation implied.

That wasn't the point of the evening though, and they both knew it. "Think he'll come back?" Gibbs asked mildly.

Tony looked down at his plate and shrugged. "Probably not. He wouldn't have come this time if he didn't already have business in the area." His smile came out a bit twisted. "The rest of the family won't be pleased he met up with the mongrel half-"

Gibbs cuffed him around the head. Tony looked up at him, eyes dark with pain instead of danger.

"Their loss," Gibbs said firmly. He nodded to the steak. "You gonna eat that or stare it into submission?"

Tony gave a weak chuckle and dug into it. He looked up a bit nervously after only a few more bites. "Sorry I was kind out of it during the case, Boss."

Sorry. Another one of those words fey didn't throw around a lot.

For that matter, he didn't either. "Never apologize," he reminded him. He rose to take his plate to the kitchen. "It's getting pretty late," he called back as he went. "Spare room's open if you need it."

He'd get Tony through the night, and he'd let Abby know about the problem tomorrow.

You stuck by your team. That was what it was for.

* * *

In the old days, there was a werewolf king. It's said that he had the allegiance of all the packs in Italy. He went to war to try to become king of all the wolves in Europe.

He fell eventually, but the precedent for a liege pack was set.

* * *

1.

There was a long list of things Tony didn't appreciate. Getting framed for murder - _again_ \- was definitely one of them.

Especially since, one of these days, he was pretty sure the team was going to stop buying that it was a frame job and start thinking they had a mad wolf on their hands.

They might not even be wrong. He was probably halfway there already. He'd killed and liked the feel of the blood in his throat -

 _And then he'd thrown up until there was nothing left in his stomach, and he'd suddenly realized he was crying -_

And everyone knew he had issues, he was pretty sure the only reason they kept passing his psyche evals was because they were under some delusion that he couldn't lie when he answered their questions -

 _Probably the only reason they let most of the team stay in the field, honestly -_

And there was something so wrong with him that no wolf in the world would let him into their pack, they could smell the wrongness on him -

 _He had a pack, he wasn't worthless, he HAD A PACK -_

Tony slammed his hand into the wall and took a certain vicious satisfaction in the dent in the concrete and the blood slipping down his knuckles.

"I see you don't do well in confinement."

Tony spun. A man was lounging against the bars of the holding cell. Well, he said a man; the hoodie and mischievous features made him lean more towards an older teenager.

Right up until he caught sight of the eyes.

Green eyes, not that it mattered. What mattered was the ageless power swirling behind them.

"Fey," he said flatly.

"Anthony D. DiNozzo Junior." The fey rolled the syllables around in his mouth like he was savoring them.

"That's my name," he agreed. _And you're never getting the rest of it._ "You want to tell me yours?"

The fey grinned, revealing razor sharp teeth. "Call me Grimalkin. He owes me a favor, so I might as well borrow his name."

"Alright, Grimy, what do you want? This isn't exactly the most interesting square on the block?"

Grimalkin's smile grew wider. Tony didn't think that was a good sign. "My king wishes to meet with you."

Tony gestured to the cell. "Well, as you can tell, I'm a little tied up at the moment. Tell him to get back to me later."

The fey stroked one of the bars. The metal shivered. "My king is not accustomed to waiting. I have been authorized to . . . overcome any obstacles that might disappoint him on that front."

Grimy was offering to break him out of here.

Tony leaned against the wall with feigned casualness. "I thought the Accords frowned on things like that."

"Oh, no," Grimy assured him. "The Accords are very clear on the procedures for suspected criminals. This? This is not the Accorded way to deal with an accused member of Oberon's court. We can do whatever we wish to correct the situation."

"That's all very nice," Tony said slowly. "But I'm not a member of Oberon's court."

"Aren't you?" Grimalkin made a coin dance across his knuckles.

No. Not a coin. Oberon's sigil.

"No," he said firmly.

"And when the walls start closing in?" Grimalkin asked softly. "When you haven't seen the moon in a fortnight and the shadows start caressing your throat until you can't breathe from the weight of them? When they exchange those toy cuffs for cursed metal, your pack abandons you, and your mind starts to tear itself apart? What then?"

The walls seemed to close in as he spoke. The stale air grew thicker. Phantom hands squeezed around his neck.

He stepped forward to the bars with a snarl. "It won't come to that."

"So much faith," Grimalkin murmured. "Well, perhaps it will, and perhaps it won't, but you can't last out here forever, child. Sooner or later you'll need us. And when you do - " He flipped the sigil into the cell. "All you have to do is call."

"I've no need for faerie gifts," Tony said in a dangerously soft voice.

"That's not a faerie gift. That's a faerie promise." Grimy's smile grew impossibly sharper. "And it's not as if you wouldn't be giving us something in exchange."

Tony stepped back from the bars. "I won't swear service to your king."

But Grimalkin was already gone.

* * *

2\. 

The sigil followed him.

It was always on the ground, a few feet away, just visible from the corner of his eye. Daring him to pick it up.

Except for one tense incident where Tony yelped for McGee not to touch it, he ignored it. This was helped by the fact that only he, McGee, and possibly Ducky could actually _see_ the thing.

They'd gotten him out of the murder charge and more or less caught the people responsible, but Abby kept insisting there was a fey connection they hadn't managed to track down.

Tony resisted the urge to bang his head on his desk. "Those sneaky - Of course there's a fey connection. Of course there is. They set the whole thing up to - " He spun and punched his filing cabinet.

Punched through it, to be exact.

He was just pulling out his trembling fist when Gibbs strolled around the corner.

"We got a problem here?"

"Fey are trying to recruit again, Boss," Tim said helpfully.

"Why do they even want me?" Tony moaned. "I'm not even full fey."

"Perhaps that is why," Ziva suggested. "You yourself told us that you are the only human-fey hybrid on the registration list, yes? Is this still true?"

McGeek nodded. "I set up an alert on it. Still only one DiNozzo."

"There you are then," Ziva said, leaning across her desk. "You are currently unique, and if there have been others before you, I have certainly never heard of them. Perhaps the Fair King fancies himself a bit of a collector."

"I am not one of McGeek's action figures."

McGee tilted his head. "I don't know, Tony, the idea's got merit."

Tony didn't disagree with that. He just really, really didn't want to think about it. He sent a pleading look at Gibbs.

Gibbs, thankfully, rose magnificently to the occasion. "What about ideas on our actual case?"

Ziva and McGee scrambled to gather their files.

Tony eyed the little circle of metal glinting evilly on the floor.

* * *

3.

By the time Bishop and Gibbs went missing, he'd almost forgotten about his little stalker.

Almost.

Now it was four days without any sign of them, he hadn't slept since they'd vanished, and the coin was talking to him.

 _"She'll kill him soon, you know."_

He knew that. Oh, how he knew that. But pack bonds would only take him so far, and right now, they weren't taking him far enough.

Running like a wolf possessed around the town they'd vanished in wasn't a _good_ tactic to try and fix that problem, but it was the best they had.

 _"She will gnaw on his bones in the dark, and there will be nothing you can do."_

He growled. If he was going to have to deal with a hallucination, it could at least be an encouraging one.

 _"Oh, I am very real, Anthony. And this story doesn't have to end this way. I can help you if you let me."_

Tony missed a step but grimly kept running. _Oberon._

 _"I am sure there was a title in there somewhere."_

 _Tell me where to find Gibbs, and I'll call you anything you want._

 _"Ah."_ A delicate pause. _"Including 'liege lord?'"_

Tony swallowed. _You drive a hard bargain._

 _"I get what I want."_

 _You killed my mother._

 _"Pointless defiance killed your mother. With two members of your pack's lives on the line, I do not think you will make the same mistake."_

And - That was the thing. Tony would literally rather chew his own arm off than swear to Oberon.

But to save Gibbs. To save Bishop.

His ties to them quivered as if anticipating the impending severance.

And they settled slightly differently than they had before.

There. That road.

Tony's trot turned into a dead run.

 _"An inopportune moment, I see. Well, keep the coin. When you are desperate, you may call on me. But be careful. You have refused me twice. Refuse me thrice, and I shall be forced to consider you in rebellion."_

Tony shivered, but all things considered, he had more important concerns than the threat.

* * *

 ** _At the end, though, pack's always about family. Shared blood or not._**

* * *

 _3._

"Pretty!"

Tony snatched Thalia up before she could touch the sigil on the floor. "No," he said firmly. "We don't touch that."

"Pretty," Thalia insisted with a pout.

Tony took one look at those pleading blue eyes and sighed. "I'm going to have to get McGee to make some kind of charm to stop you, aren't I? Well, not McGee. He's given up on magic," he told her as he swung her onto his hip. "Maybe he knows someone." Or Ducky would.

A knock came at the door. "Open up, DiNozzo," an irritated voice called.

Tony relaxed. "Thank goodness." He bounced Thalia a little as he walked towards the door. "Alright, Thalia. How'd you like to meet your Grandpa Gibbs?"


	11. Bonus: Neath the White and Scarlet Berry

**A/N: I don't own NCIS. Part nine of my Christmas fics.**

 **Quote and title from "Christmas in India" by Rudyard Kipling which is actually a lot more depressing than these fragments make it sound. Mistletoe lore from mistletoe dot org dot uk.**

 **Obviously, set before Kate died.**

* * *

 _"Call a truce, then, to our labors - let us feast with friends and neighbors." - Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

The break room was struggling up with a few optimistic strings of lights. A long folding table was inhabited with the annual offerings: cheap punch, the good cookies from HR, the gingerbread men iced to look like they'd died gruesomely from Abby's lab, the obligatory cheese plate, and a plastic bin of whatever dessert had been on sale at the store.

Kate poked unenthusiastically at her last cheese cub. She kind of wished Gibbs had stayed stubbornly at his desk like last year. Then she could have ducked out to bring him a plate and conveniently forgot to come back.

Tony wandered over toward her while he bit off the head of one of the gingerbread men. Red frosting coated his lips.

"Truly, you are descended from the monsters the legends speak of," she said dryly.

Tony grinned. "Hey, for something baked by someone who doesn't eat, it's not bad." He wiped his mouth absently. "Enjoying the Christmas party so far?"

"Tony, your desk is more decorated than this room is right now - "

"Because my desk is awesome."

" - the food is mediocre, we're wasting work hours, and to top it all off, it's not even a real Christmas party! It's a 'winter celebration.'" She couldn't do air quotes properly while balancing a plate and a cup, but she gave it her best shot.

"To be fair, we're not all even the same species. They can't exactly assume we're all part of the same religion." Tony was using his annoyingly reasonable voice, and he was doing it on purpose, which was worse.

"No," she agreed. "We're not all the same species. You can tell by the way they swerve to avoid the monsters lurking in the corners."

"Gibbs doesn't," he pointed out.

"Gibbs is special."

Tony conceded the point. "We really are lurking in the corner, aren't we?" He looked around them ruefully, then froze. "Er, Kate, don't look now, but I think lurking here might have been a mistake."

Naturally, she looked.

The sad, wilted remains of a sickly pale sprig of mistletoe were hanging in the ceiling tiles right above her head.

She took a brisk step to her left and took a sip of her punch like the incident had never happened.

"Pretty sure that's not the tradition, Kate."

"Did you know that in Greek and Nordic cultures, mistletoe had strong ties to death?" She smiled at him pleasantly. "If you don't want it to have strong ties to yours, you'll forget this ever happened."

Surprisingly, Tony's eyes lit up. "That's it. That's what's bothering you. The death thing."

She stiffened. "What?"

"It's not a Christmas party," he said in the same voice he used when he'd pieced the clues together. "But it still has some Christmas traditions. Like mistletoe. And," his eyes flicked to his watch, "in five minutes, carols. We all stand in a circle and sing, and you - "

"Can't," she finished with a sigh.

"You _could,_ " he pointed out.

"Somehow, causing a panic at the office Christmas party doesn't seem quite in the spirit of the season."

"Winter celebration," he corrected.

She rolled her eyes. "Whichever." She could just duck out without an excuse, but that felt too much liked acting as if she was ashamed.

"Well . . . We could . . . " Tony made to step closer, but he tripped. When he grabbed her arm for balance, her punch splashed all over his shirt. "Ah, man."

It wasn't quite her fault, but she still felt guilty. "Here, let me help you get cleaned up. I know a trick that might work."

Tony's mournful look brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah, come on, just - " She led him out of the room. The second they were clear, Tony was grinning with self-satisfaction.

Any traces of guilt vanished. _"Can_ you even trip?"

"Not like that," he said, still grinning. He poked the stain. "I really would like that trick, though."

She sighed. "It's the least I can do. Come on." She headed down to their desks.

While she rooted through her purse, Tony fiddled with something on his computer. She froze when she realized what it was.

Christmas music poured into the room.

It took her a moment to find her voice. "Rudolph, Tony? Really?"

"No reindeer games for us," he reminded her. "So we on the Island of Misfit Toys will have to make our own." He caught her hands and started swaying to the music. "Come on. Sing with me."

She started to say something about how dancing with a fey seemed inadvisable, but she caught herself.

She couldn't sing. He couldn't dance.

"Nothing fancy," she warned instead. "And _you'd_ better not run screaming."

"Scout's honor," he promised, grinning once again. He just whirled her around in a slow circle that didn't match the song at all but left them both with plenty of breath to sing.


End file.
